Michael.Child

Christmas Cheer... Or not

2005-12-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

If I have to listen to "feliz Navidad" on the radio one more time, I'm gonna go postal, and it will not be pretty.

IOU

2005-12-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a long time, like 3 months or something. I will soon. I promise.

Sheer Amazement

2005-09-01T16:06:00.000-06:00

I was looking through a journal that I had written in extensively from about the beginning of february to the end of March. I found this poem that I had written about how God had changed me.

It is with sheer amazement
I sit beneath a dull gray sky
The clouds scatter above me
the sky shows through, blue, timidly
Timidly was how I sat here last time
But who is in control now?
It is coincidence against confidence
I stare across a dry horizon
A landscape that was
Trees of bitter pain whither
All that has come is fresh, new
A gold aura resonates from a distant pond
All is permanently refreshed
It is with sheer amazement
I am taken through the atmosphere
I arrive at an undiscovered planet
Curiosity pilots my vessel
I see a being, resembling myself
It is with sheer amazement
A tear falls down a warm cheek
Faceless, the being turns my way
An imploding force is come to me
Change is the energy, freedom the wave
It is with sheer amazement
I sit beneath a dull, grey sky
I've sat here before
The clouds scatter
My God has rearranged
It is with sheer amazement
I am complete

Let me know what you think. Leave me a comment.

New Beginnings

2005-07-31T22:54:00.000-06:00

Hey there everyone. I know its been a little while, but I wanted to wait to find a moment that I was too bored to even sit and stare at a wall, to fill you in on my ever so exciting life. So with that said, here it goes:
- First and foremost, i am no longer a member of the band Jade. For so long in my life I have wanted to just take that first step in the direction I know God is calling me in. I've known the whole time I was in Jade that eventually I would do worship, but as time went on, I found that I would only be fulfilled leading worship. So thats what I'm doing, and that is the ONLY reason I stepped away from Jade. It was not at all a bad break-up. I just have to follow God, which brings me to my next part:
- I decided, for sure this time, to get my butt into the school of worship at New Life Church .
There was an "epic battle" in my head for about 6 months on whether or not I should go there. So finally I realized that I just need to step out in faith and get on it. I was so afraid that every move I made would be the wrong one, so for a long time, I just did what I was doing at that time, and didn't try to make progress in my life. I've heard it said before "It's easy to steer a ship back on course if it gets off while moving, but steering a shipped when its docked doesn't matter, because it's not going anywhere anyway." Well I'm on the move now, and honestly loving God more than I ever have in my entire life.
- Oh, and also for the school of worship, I needed to record 2 demo songs, so they could hear me sing. I wanted them to be high quality, so I could use them for other things, not sounding like they came from an 8-track recorded in my bathroom in the middle of a hurricane. I've posted them online HERE , so check them out, and let me know what you think in the comments section on this site, or at the myspace site.
- Continuing on worship matters, I went to the Desperation Conference the 28-30 of July. It freaking rocked. I've come out feeling unstoppable for God. I also learned that God cares alot more about who we are than what we are doing. So I know I will take alot of time this next 10 months developing who I am, more than what I'm doing.
- Things with my girlfriend are going better than I ever thought they could have (not because of you sweetie, but because I'm a retarted dude). I love her more and more every day. August 14th will mark the 11th month of our official "dating" relationship, though we've liked each other much longer than that. I hear about these relationship dramas that alot of people my age are going through, and I consider myself lucky to have found someone.

Anyway, I haven't had much sleep the last few days, so i'm going to hit the sack. If you stop by, leave me a comment, please, so I know you were here. Love to you all....
Michael Child

Heaven

2005-06-24T02:29:00.000-06:00

I think that heaven will be awesome because not only will God wipe away every tear, but he will wipe away every "why did...?"

About me

2005-06-21T10:38:00.000-06:00

I'm the kind of guy that wakes up in the morning, walks into the bathroom, sees my hair, and says "Man, I wish it could stay like this all day"...

Teeth Cleaning

2005-06-08T09:15:00.000-06:00

So today I'm heading up to Castle Rock to get my teeth cleaned at the dentist office where my girlfriend works. I'm somewhat nervous as to what they might find, seeing as how I haven't been to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned for about..... 6-7 years..... (ok, I know, just breathe) . Now, I've never had any cavities, well, I'm not totally sure about that. Anyway, I'm just hoping they don't find some kind of ancient civilization living in my mouth, like all the whos of whooville living on a snowflake.

It's Been a While

2005-06-06T23:26:00.000-06:00

Lots of changes lately... Where do I start?

I've graduated high school. I remember being in fifth grade, not being able to imagine myself being 17 and out of high school. Its very weird now to be there and look back at all the dumb things I used to think.
My dad is officially remarried. It's pretty exciting to see my dad be in love again. Good for him.
I'm going to the school of worship for sure now.
I'll be 18 in about a month. I will go rent some porn, while smoking the cigarettes that I can legally buy, and scratching a lotto ticket, all while ordering a useless piece of workout equipment from an infomercial. (Not really...)
I finally got my car up and running. It is what the word "Houpdie" was made to describe, but I love it more and more everyday.
I am still dating Jaime. Almost 9 months now and no signs of stopping. She is the cutest thing to grace this planet. ;)
The band I'm in, Jade, had a photoshoot with Jared's dad. That's what my profile picture from. Awesome quality. We also made it to the 3rd round in the battle of the bands that we're in. It's really exciting, with $3,000 on the line, we're looking to win it

That's probably not everything, but I just thought I would update. I'm a person who has to have some change every now and then. So, anyway, my comfy bed is calling me. I will answer...

2005-06-06T23:15:00.000-06:00

profileblog

Sunday Morning

2005-03-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

This was a conversation I had with bobby at about 7:18 am this morning on my cell phone, keeping in mind that worship practice starts at 7:30am:
M: Hello?
B: Hey, did you need a ride this morning still?
M: Yeah
B: Yeah, I'm not even dressed yet (laugh).....
(optimism from me...)
M: Ok, thats fine... (with a smile)......

I'm a really nice guy in case you didn't know...

Lost in Translation

2005-02-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

You'll also notice that I added "Lost in Translation" to my favorite movies category. I watched the movie a few nights ago with Jaime. It stars Bill Murray, and Scarlett Johansen. Read the plot outline of the movie, then go watch it. Very cool film, my kind of movie.

Can't get no love....

2005-02-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so after many comments from my girlfriend's parents, I decided to replace the word lover in my profile with the phrase passionate lover of God. Sorry for the confusion....

2005-02-28T13:57:00.000-07:00

This is the other picture I took in my room. Nice lighting effects. I like it alot.

2005-02-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

I thought this picture was pretty cool. And I don't only like taking pics of myself, I just thought that this one was awesome with the slower shutter speed. Let me know what you think!

In my room....

2005-02-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

So, I know I haven't blogged in a little while, but that's ok, life's been busy, and busy is good for me. (most of the time). The reason I title this entry "In my room..." is to say that I now have the computer that I do all the graphic design at the church with here in my room, with a desk, speakers, wireless internet, a printer, firefox, and my own personal touches. I'd say with all of this going on, my productivity will go through the roof, and my social activity will, in turn, go down the drain.

Profile

2005-02-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

Hey, check out my profile. Its pretty cool 'cause I'm a pretty cool guy ;)

Not this again....

2005-02-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Check this article out about North Korea.......
No my question is why wouldn't the U.S. have a need to be hostile? We fought NK in Vietnam. Now they sit here and tell us that "yes, we do have Nucs, and we intend on using them unless you be nice to us." President Bush, I say nuc the hell out of them.
Sorry, I have to express my view on certain politics at times. Even though I'm 17, and my opinion on anything really doesn't matter, but it feels nice to at least be 17 and actually have an opinion.

Random thoughts

2005-02-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Here are a few don'ts:

Never walk in the snow when wearing flip-flops.
Never try to race the man pushing the special ed. kid in the wheel chair when crossing the street. He'll always win. Trust me.......

Haircut

2005-02-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

BTW, last night I got a really cool haircut, with my girlfriend. I'll post a picture of it as soon as I get home...

Whats the real American Idol?

2005-02-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

Check this article out.......
Priorities? Now I didn't see the State of the Union address, but it was because I was at work. Now had I stayed home, I would have been intent on watching President Bush giving the state of the union. But Many Americans didn't think like I would have. Apparently, watching idiots wanting attention on American Idol is more important than the state of our country? Geez.

Winter Retreat

2005-02-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Well, in my last attempt to blog, my internet died somehow, so I haven't got a chance to update lately. Anyway, the winter retreat for Afterburn went really good overall. There was, of course, some bad things about it, but the strong majority of it was awesome. It was really cool to be surrounded by about a foot of snow up in Woodland Park, doing worship, and spending time with God the entire weekend. Worship was really cool saturday night. People were half asleep, and it was dark, and snowy, and quiet. I guess I just really enjoy that time with God. So, all in all, it was a good trip.

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

2005-01-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

Check this story out. I hope if I'm ever cloned, then fused with an animal, I hope that its a glorious, strong, feared animal. Maybe like a lion, or a panther. Or maybe a liger (excuse yet another Napolean Dynamite line, like we all haven't heard enough). Maybe a white shark? I definetely don't want to be a michael/ naked jesus lizard hybrid (the one that can run across the water with the big wind flap around around its head), or a Michael / sheep dog hybrid.... That would suck.

Insomnia

2005-01-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

Today, I need sleep.....

Laundry

2005-01-25T23:33:00.000-07:00

So in my attempt and conviction to post more, I thought I would tell you that I am sitting here waiting for my laundry to get done washing, so I can put it in the dryer, and have it ready for me in the morning, and go to bed. You thought your nights at home were boring......

Links--------------->

2005-01-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Hey, I'm sitting here in digital art class (photoshop class), the class in which I know more than my teacher about what we are learning, so I decided since she isn't here today to update my links a bit, seeing as how they don't come with you when you change templates. But the cool thing was that I figured out how to do it, and got it on my first try. I official am a master at html...... or not. Anyway, I'll do my best to update links as I remember them.

Thank you Dana

2005-01-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, Johnny Carson died....... Not that I've ever seen one of his shows all the way through, but I did see Dana Carvey do a fantastic impression of him, and based on that, he seemed like he would be a pretty funny guy......

Inhabitance

2005-01-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

"God inhabits the praises of his people." I found this to be very true last night. We had a small group of people at the youth group, at least smaller than normal. The second I walked out of preservice prayer, I took a look around at the group that was just hanging out, and I knew worship was gonna be cool. So the service starts and we do the first song, "oh Praise him", from David Crowder Band, and I can just feel that people are hungry for God. So I brought the song down, and told everyone that when we brought it back up, just to get excited for God, to jump around and go crazy. And thats exactly what happened. There was not one person in the room not jumping. And its not that people were just jumping to have fun, but they were praising God! "Isn't it amazing that you guys just jumped around for 2 minutes, without saying anything, and the presence of God is here so strong?!! Thats exactly what worship is supposed to be. So after that first song, I knew that it was gonna be awesome. As the night went on, people were receiving freedom all over the sanctuary. To wrap it up, worship was the best it has ever been in that sanctuary during a youth meeting. So when God moves, I really enjoy, just thought I'd blog about it.

Inspiration

2005-01-20T13:38:00.001-07:00

Just some backgound, I lead the worship team at Afterburn youth ministry of Impact Christian Center. There are about 10 people on the team in all, including singers. Everyone is fairly young (at least most of the musicians are). Not everyone is very developed musically, or even as far as their heart to worship God. I know the heart is there, it just needs the right environment to come out. Anyway, every once in a while, I need to get some good inspiration for the worship team I lead. So I head up to New Life Church, for the High School Service, _tag. I have always loved the worship team there, because it is so tight, and everyone seems to know what everyone else is doing, but at the same time, can follow where the Holy Spirit is leading them. Anyway, I was very inspired last night. I needed some new ideas. They played the song "Obsession" written by Martin Smith and Delirious?. But with the addition of a DJ on their worship team, they tweeked the style of it. Very cool...... Alot more driving. Anyway, the worship was awesome, and thats all that me and Jaime stayed for. It's difficult for me to find a balance between worshiping God whole-heartedly, and making sure the music sounds good too. I wish the team could just flow. One day.... So just an update. I'm trying to blog more. I've discovered I am more of a verbal processor. Maybe this will help me out. Later!

Template change

2005-01-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

I thought that with a new year upon us, I would change my blog template. Its a little more minimalist..... Just my style :)

Belated 2004 recap

2005-01-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

It's weird to think that I haven't posted since last year.....
Anyway, I thought I would give a brief recap of 2004 using brief descriptions . So here it goes: fitness, the Buckle, cabin trip, easter production, "I did not come for the healthy, but for the sick!!", Youth pastor leaving, hurt, lies, summer, Jade, broken relationships, Worship team, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, Incubus, gigs, palm spring CA, Love at last, closure, switchfoot, homecoming, one-month anniversary, 2 month anniversary, 3 month anniversary, American Eagle Outfitters, Floor-sets, Emotional ups, Emotional Downs, Friends came, friends went, Christmas, Murray St. Darts, Abandonement cafe, lazy streaks, energetic streaks, computer coding, kicking the computer, excitement to worship God, Dreading every second of it, Arguments with girls, First Kiss, Cycling class at the gym, sitting at home eating rum cake, poker nights, Cigars, pipes, X-box live, writing new songs, scrapping old ones, graphic design, loving doing the bulletin, hating calling people about the bulletin, loving life, hating it, happy siblings, angry siblings, posting blogs, not feeling like posting blogs, Happy new year, coffee shops, new life school of worship, recording studios, and long-awaited renewal.
Theres a chance ( a large one) that when reading this ( for both of you who actually do), you might not know what it means. Oh well, you can ask me if you need to. 2004, was, well..... 2004 sucked. But 2005 should be good, and I can't wait to see what God has in store for me.

2004-11-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

Noise for the Needy
At Doherty High School (the high school I attend often :) ), every year around thanksgiving time, we have what's called Harvest of Love. The student council does their best to motivate the school to give money, canned goods, and whatever else that can be given, to needy families can have food on Thanksgiving. This is a pretty good event, except for the fact that schools compete to raise the most food, and tend to lose sight of what they are giving towards. Of the many events that are part of this season, there is one in particular that has had my eye for my entire high school career, and that is Noise for the Needy. It is a concert that all the proceeds go towards the fundraiser. I have always wanted whatever band I was in to play in this, because its a win-win- raise money for charity, while getting peer recognition. So this year, Jade finally gets to play. We are on last, and get to play for about 30 minutes. Which equals to about 4 songs, and a little bit of jam time. So, if you're reaing this, come down to Doherty High School, located on Barnes rd. right off of Austin Bluffs. The concert is tomorrow night, and the first band starts at 7:00 pm. It's gonna be an awesome thing, so you should definitely check it out!

2004-11-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention.....
So its been brought to my attention from someone I know that I have not mentioned the fact that I have a girlfriend. Kind of ironic seeing as how it was my girlfriend that brought that fact up. And she hadn't either in her blog until a few days ago, but she also hadn't blogged for about 2 months or something, so she's off the hook. Anyway, I forgot to mention the fact that there is a "special someone" in my life (if you can get past the corniness in that statement, please continue reading). Her name is Jaime. We started dating September 14th.
Dating... What a weird thing. It's not marriage, but its not "just friends" either. Its that inbetween point, where everything could go up or down. Its the point that if you act like you're just friends, things can go wrong, and your partner will question you as to why you're acting like you're just friends. But you also can't become like you're married. The other night, Jaime was at my house, along with a few of my dads friends for his weekly poker night. Well her mom was there also. I asked my dad if I could do something, and was assuming since I could, that she could with me (I think it was reading a letter that was "top secret" or something). So we are both sitting on the couch reading it, and her mom looks and notices that we are both reading the letter, and asks why she is reading it if she's not allowed, and I say, "Well she's my other half!". Its safe to say that didn't go over well. I guess since I don't pay for her groceries, and live with her, or have a ring on my left hand, then she's really not my other half.
All that story to say, dating is that tight rope in the middle of friends and lovers. I really love dating though (even though this letter may sound somewhat pessimistic towards it). There's nothing like getting to know a person intimately (and I don't mean sexually!). Jaime is one of the most incredible people I have ever met. She continues to fascinate me. I don't understand alot of the things she does, and vice versa. But its amzing to me that 2 people that are so different can come together, and love each other so much. I really love her. She makes my life alot easier. I guess this summer I really went through a phase where I disliked people. I disliked being around them. I was very hurt. I went to 3 concerts by myself! Who does that?? Anyway, its awesome to have found a person that loves me for who I am, and is always there for me, so I'm not alone.
So yes, the dating seen has been going well for me. I am enjoying this new time in my life. And also, me and her dating was not just a sudden thing. We've attempted dating for about 16 months prior to "officially" dating. But during that time, we got to know the good and the bad side of each other, and after seeing all that decided to stick together. And let me say this. If you're desperate to date someone, thats the best time not to date someone. Let it happen in God's timing. Get to the point where you don't want it, and it will happen for you. So, I gotta go, Jaime, i love you, and peace out!

2004-11-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
On one of the most important days in American History, Election day '04, my vote doesn't count. I missed the cutoff day to turn 18 by about 8 or 9 months. So should all of these issues about our nation matter to me if I don't even get to voice my opinion? No, yet they still do. My girlfriend calls me a geek because I am so into politics. In actuallity, I am into people. Politics bore me. Its the fact that people do whatever ploy or plan possible to get into power. Thats what fascinates me. They think that the opinion they have on an issue should be above that of almost 300 million others. I love to watch people operate. I like to try to figure out the way they think, or the way they react in situations. If you want to see this in action, turn on Fox news every once in a while; especially the past 3 months. Anyway, I just felt like typing what I feel on this tuesday. The first one in November. I'm bored today, and I feel inactive. Yet I also feel nervous, about the future. I've been thinking alot the past week about my future. Should I take the safe route? Should I take the 9 to 5 route, be secure in my paycheck, while being bored or confined out of my mind? Or rather take the unsafe route. The "rockstar" route. Focus all my attentions and money into something that I really love. The pursuit of happiness. The latter route is filled with criticisms and doubts, sometimes even self-doubts. Yet the former route lacks creativity, or purpose for that matter. Like I said before, I love people, and I love reactions. It would be purposeless to me to live my life working for some corporation making an average amount, making some top CEO very rich, and programming some code that will allow someone to organize their finances, or some meaningless program. Or I could entertain millions. I could make music that would help people out in their life. Write lyrics that would help someone out when they are down. Make some money!! I know its not all about money, but money is fun. But what could be more important than someone coming to a concert and being absolutely entertained for an hour? What could be more important than peoples relationships with their creator being changed from listening to lyrics in one of our songs? I don't believe anything is more important than that. Maybe I could have it both ways. Have the skills of a IT guy, and still play my music. But I'm more of the type that if I don't focus 100 % on something, it might not come out or work out right. So, I guess in the light of election day, or decision day (as most of the cable news stations are calling it), I sit and ponder some of my own decisions. Just a 17 year old guy trying to figure out whats next. Please excuse my ramblings, as this whole entire entry was typed as it came into my brain. Peace out!

2004-10-21T08:17:00.000-06:00

The Good and the Bad
I'd say my life right now is a balance of good and bad. Maybe what I think of as bad some think of as easy, or some might think of it as incredibly terrible. Who knows. Either way, I'm handling the bad, and looking on the bright side of things. In the midst of financial troubles, at my home and at the church, I manage to crash my dad's car into the most senile old woman in Colorado Springs. Double wammy right there. Yet, also in the midst of financial troubles, I land a job at American Eagle, making a somewhat decent amount for a teen in a retail job. Also, JADE, the band I share along with 3 other incredibly talented guys is starting to get around, and finally play some gigs. After 5 months in hiding, hard work, and loads of creativity, we landed a gig at a local bar. We brought more people than the bar could handle, so they asked us back. I think with how many people we brought with us, we could have played polka music the and still have been asked back. Also, playing at the church, and at school for charity (thanksgiving season). Things in my life are going - not necissarily good or bad- just going right now. I've noticed and learned very well, that no matter what happens, God is right there with me cheering me on, and helping me out, helping me through. God's got my back.

2004-09-08T19:27:00.000-06:00

Stock Market Michael
So over the past few days I've had a sudden interest in the business world. I am intruiged with how economics work, supply and demand, etc. There's a big part of me that wants to be a successfull business man, not just for the money, but for the challenge. I want to convince myself that I can do anything I put my mind to. So I was looking around on the internet about stocks, and discovered a site called Virtual Stock Exchange. Its a site that's sponsored by CBS's MarketWatch. You log in, and the site gives you a million dollars in "play money" that you can invest in stocks. But the thing is that its with what the currents stock numbers are. So its basically like fantasy football, but with the stock market. Its a really cool thing because I can actually practice investing, without using money. I've always wanted to do the stock market, but I don't have real money. So its my new fun thing to do at the moment. Anyway, just an update.

2004-08-30T14:38:00.000-06:00

Senior Year
Well, my senior year in high school has begun. For some reason this year I seem to have more motivation (so far) to get things done. It might be caused by the knowing that its my last chance to do things right (as far as grades), or that maybe the quicker I do my work, the quicker I get out of High school?, or even might be that I am more mature than i was last year. It is most likely a combination of all of those. But all in all, things are going well. I haven't caught the senioritis bug yet because there is a big part of me that knows that I will miss high school once its over. So I just want to take my time and enjoy this year, before I have to deal with all that stupid adult responsibility stuff. I have some good classes, one of them being sociology. I love anything having to do with psychology, and this class is definetely that. Anyway, I will quit rambling. I'm a senior now, and I'm enjoying being on top.

2004-08-19T08:24:00.000-06:00

The long awaited update......
July 13th was the last time I blogged. The fact that it has been over a month probably means that there won't be many people reading this anymore, and you'll say to your self, "Michael is just a lazy bum who never blogs, so I'm not going to wait for it any more (as if any of you were in the first place.)" That is understandable. But give me a second chance.... please. Alot has gone on in the past month, so I have one big juicy blog to write out now.
Palm Springs. One of the greatest places on earth. One of the hottest places on earth. One of the weathiest places on earth. One of the dryest places on earth. You get the picture. Palm springs is the town I was born in. (well not technically palm springs, technically I was born in a town about 5 minutes outside of palm springs called Cathedral City.) But I had the opportunity to visit some old friends of the family down there, along with my mom and youngest brother. It was great. The lap of luxury the whole time. I went golfing, stayed in a really nice hotel, met alot of people, ate ALOT, and got to relax. I got back on the 16th of August. It was a great trip.
The Manchurian Candidate. Great movie. Saw it last night with erika. If you are like me, and you are into movies that make you guess how its gonna turn out, then you will love this movie. Its political, its against corporate america, its violent, its very psychological. I love movies that have to do with memory. Those seem to be my favorite, because memory is always what we ourselves make it. And it always seems to make a movie more interesting. Some of my alltime favorite movies are about memory, like The Butterfly Effect, Memento, and Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind. Anyway, I would give this movie 4 1/2 out of 5 stars. And I left that half of a star out because I thought the movie was somewhat predictable. I was sitting next to erika, and told her how the movie was going to end halfway through it, and it ended exactly how I thought it would. But I do that alot compulsively. Anyway, great movie, go check it out.
Jade. The band is going great. We've written about 2 new songs in the last month. Its really nice to be able to play a song and say that we wrote it, and its ours. There are so many bands here that just cover and cover and cover, because they aren't creative enough to write anything of their own. I'm not into that. The only reason we do covers is just until we have enough of our own songs to play a long set. Recording is still in the process. We've run into a snag, that being that we are recording at a friend of ours house, and lately either I've been on vacation, or his roof caved in, or a relative passed away. So the only free day he ever has to do it is saturday. And all we have to do is record the vocals and the drums, but we just haven't had the opportunity to do that, which in a way is a good thing, because we've had alot of time to practice the songs, and figure out what we want to add into them.
Thats it. Thats my life the past month. Things have been going really good. I think for me at least the dust has settled on alot of bad situations that were going on around me and now I have the chance to see things a little bit more clearly. And that has given me alot of peace about things, and peace is good! So if you read through this or skimmed through, thank you for taking a few minutes and reading about my life.

2004-07-13T10:38:00.000-06:00

The Big one-seven
Is there a such thing as a big 17? I don't know. But yesterday I turned 17 years old and became a man. All those days of being turned down for rated-R movie tickets and big jobs are over now. I'm a man now ( I was a woman before?? No, wait, I was a boy....Not a woman....). I've never really felt a difference from 16 years old and 364 days to 17 years old and 0 days. I hate it when people ask me if I feel older. I want to say "yeah, I'm old enough now to be asked that enough times for it to get annoying." But anyway, enough ranting. I had a good day. I went down to pueblo (or hell as I like to refer to it) to finally take a long awaited ride on the recently aquired dirtbike. Its a 250cc. Its a beast. A beast I had a difficult time taming. I didn't get it out of 2 gear. I was going so slow on it I stalled it in 1st gear. (for those who don't understand that, lets just say that at one point, had I gone any slower, i would have gone backwards). It was alot of fun other than pueblo being a pleasant 101 degrees! But I came home, had a awesome steak dinner, which was good. Oh, and I got an iPod!! Its a 20 GB. Which basically means I would need thousands of hours of music to run out of space. ITs awesome. So then I was up until 2 in the morning figuring out how to add all of my music to it. SO yeah, I had a great, laid back lovely day. IT was good. Peace out!

2004-07-06T13:19:00.000-06:00

Lesson learned
Hey, haven't really blogged in a while. I've been really busy lately, with church things, and with Jade, but I like busy, busy is good.
So today I learned a valuble lesson in my life. And that is that if you lean on people to make you happy, its never gonna happen. No one is perfect for you. Even when you think people want to be your friend, and even tell you they are, they can lie too. So if you put your hopes of being fulfilled and happy in a person, or people in general, its bound to fail, because people aren't perfect. I'm coming out of a relationship that I've had for a while, where me and the other person finally said, "why are we trying so hard to make a friendship work when we both want different things?", and that was it. Its been very difficult for me to move away from that. But I realize what I did wrong. I put my hopes of being happy and fulfilled in that person. The only thing you can put your hope in is God. He is the only one that will never let you down. People suck sometimes. Well, for me, alot of times in the past year. But Gods always been right there for me, and I could never even put a value on how much that means to me. Just take a second right now and look through all of my venting, and read this one sentence. People will let you down; God will not. I wish I would have realized that a long long time ago.
So with that lesson learned today, I think my day will go alot better. Tonight I'm going to a concert. John Mayer, and Maroon 5. Its gonna be hot. And when I say hot, I don't mean temperature, I mean hot as in cool. Or fly, or pimp, or whatever the lingo on the streets is. WEll, peace out!

2004-06-17T19:58:00.000-06:00

Vaca
Hola everyone. I'm typing from a really slow computer located in a bunkhouse on a ranch thats sits about an hour's drive from San Antonio, TX. Its incredible. I believe its day 7 or 8 on the 10 day trip, and this ranch is a nice way to whind it down. I'm having alot of fun so far. I just spent 2 days at the best and biggest waterpark in america, called "Shlitterbahn" in the all german town of new braunfels, TX. Before that i was in Tulsa oklahoma, visiting some friends of my aunt and uncle who turn out to be very cool. I don't have much time. I gotta go. Just letting you all know thast things are going great here, and I miss everyone. Peace out!!

2004-06-09T11:11:00.000-06:00

Schlitterbahn
Hey guys, for the next 10 days I will not be here. I will be traveling the country. My Aunt and uncle Orf are taking us (me and my bros) on a vacation. First we will be driving the "green mile" (as I like to call it) to oklahoma. We're visiting some friends of theirs, and staying maybe 1 or 2 nights there. Next, we will make our way down to new Braunfels, TX ("home of ol' sparky the electric chair"), to visit Schlitterbahn,which is I think the largest, or one of the largest waterparks on the planet. It'll be really fun, with the only downside being that I am whiter than snow right now. But maybe I'll come back with a golden tan. That would be cool. So anyway, if I see a computer down there, I will seize it and do my best to blog and keep the world updated. Check you guys later!

2004-06-04T18:31:00.000-06:00

Stunt Double
Tonight I am going to see a local performer named Bobby Doran. @ Pikes Perk downtown. My mom met him while he was performing at a company party she was attending. "He looks exactly like you michael. Its so weird!!" So I checked out his website and some pics of him, and yes, if I ever needed a double while filming a movie, he would be the man. I like most of his music. His voice is somewhat shaky at times, but I have this feeling he is going big pretty soon. He's playing at the hard rock cafe next wednesday, and its basically a tryout to be a regular performer @ Red Rocks amphitheater. I think its cool to have seen someone before they got big, and thats the main reason I am going to see him. But check out the link, and tell me what you think. That rhymed. Ok, I'm out. Again, the link is Here.

2004-06-03T22:26:00.000-06:00

Ironic
Why is it that every time you think things are going right and perfect, they change. In the past 2 years of my life, I've experience this (in my opinion) more than any other person on the planet. But the thing that makes all these changes ironic, is that you think that the end results will suck. But in my case, it doesn't. Maybe its my ability to adapt. Maybe its because its what's supposed to happen. Lately I've been given freedoms to do certain things that my whole life I've never been able or allowed to do. So now I can, but the decision is made that I wait a few months before I enjoy this freedom. But the weird thing is that I am fine with that. How ironic? I'm one of those people that says that says to others that I love change. But when change comes, I freak out. Then I adapt somewhat quickly. I've figured out these past 2 years that the world around you is meant to change. If it doesn't, something is seriously wrong. The problem with complacency is that you live your life in that state, and you never experience it any other way. That in my opinion is wrong. Half of the millionaire rappers grew up in the ghetto. They've been on all sides of the economic spectrum. I believe that is how life was meant to be (after the curse). People aren't meant to live without change anymore. Complacency can't be an option in our lives. And for some of us, we have no choice.
I don't know exactly what I am trying to say in all of this. I am really scatterbrained tonight. I guess I could sum all of this up by saying change comes a lot in my life, and I've learned to embrace it. If change doesn't come for you very often, it will either come upon you at one point, or it will be self-motivated. So embrace it. And if there's a little irony in there, laugh at it and move on.
PS._ Sorry for this odd post. I hope in some way it brightened your day or made you think a little bit.

2004-05-29T00:42:00.000-06:00

Artistic-ness
Right, I know it, Artistic-ness is not even a word. But thats ok, because I am making it one now. Lately I have been discovering my artistic/creative side. Like I said in my last blog, I've been working at Impact alot lately, in rogers office on our cool new computer thats really fast. I've been designing the bulletin, a new logo for the new name of our youth group, a website layout (and I also figured out how to design the actual website on dreamweaver), and various flyers and stuff. I think I have been at the church 4 hours a day on average this week. And I could've spent more time there had I more to do. But I'm loving it. Like McDonalds and Justin Timberlake, I'm lovin it. Its alot of fun to me to not know at all how to do something, then sit down and figure it out and accomplish something. Thats what happend with the website. James said to me, "ok, so just take that picture that you laid out in Photoshop, slice it up, and make it a website. It'll be easy!", and I gave him a very unconfident "ok, I'll give it a try.", and come to find out, it was really easy. Very time consuming, but easy also. I guess I like to use my mind while I'm still young enough for it to work. SO yeah, things are going great, I'm likin' what I'm doing, even though its not paid, I could do it for a long time. All my friends are getting some kind of horrific summer job, like American Eagle, or landscaping, and yes, those pay, but for right now I'd rather just trust what God is telling me, and go for the unpaid position, because I know I'll be alot happier. So just a friendly update from me, hope you enjoy it.

2004-05-17T14:05:00.000-06:00

Changes, ch ch ch changes...
(note: that ch ch ch was a way of singing the word changes. Somewhat of a rhythmic stutter if you will). So like the title says, yes there have been alot of changes in the past week or so. For the better for me. Roger and Rachel have officially become the youth pastors, and I have officially become the worship director of the youth ministry, with the aid of James wagner. Also, I will be taking on some other responsibilities at the church, which I am also very excited about. The first of those being that I now get to design the monthly bulletin for the church. I've always liked graphic design, even when I was ten years old trying to make some cool logo with "word-art" in Microsoft Word (which is not possible by the way.) So now, I get to take care of that. And also, rich tulezuski (I think I just slaughtered his name), the sound techie at the church is going to start getting things together for Impact Chrisitan Centers website, and he wants me to be the one that updates it. Very cool. The older I get, the more I am interested in things having to do with a computer. This last week I finally sat down learned how to do some basic HTML editing. That kind of stuff just is pretty cool to me to know how to figure out. So anyways, I finally get the chance to do some real stuff. And yes, I have thought about how busy I will be with all of it. But its ok, because I won't be in school, and this is stuff that I love to do, so I will be fine. SO yeah, just letting you all know about my life. Hope you enjoy it...?

2004-05-14T08:10:00.000-06:00

Car=Freedom
Hey all! So last night, I received my long awaited car. Its an '85 honda accord, with a beautiful grey color, and 259,000 miles on it, and it still purrs. Or not.... Well, for about $900 bucks, I'm fine with it. The bad thing is that I don't have my temporary license plates yet. Hopefully my dad will have time to go to the DMV (or hell as like to call it) and get some temps and registration (I have no idea how that works). So I can't drive it around until that happens. So things are going good except for the fact that yesterday and today I had to take my two younger brothers to school, and like my mom, they have no concept as to what it means to be on time.... anywhere, no matter what situation you put them in. So that's why I'm sitting here typing right now during my first period class. Anyway, I'm pretty soon gonna post about church stuff, and what's happening with it, when I get a chance. There have been some really big changes lately. Peace out!!

2004-05-13T07:34:00.000-06:00

Leave it to Colorado
You know, just when you think blue skies are coming your way, as they were this whole last week, I wake up to snow this morning. Great.....

2004-05-11T22:25:00.000-06:00

New Blogger Template
I noticed James' site had a new template, and he filled me in on the fact that blogger had just changed everything around. They added a bunch of new killer templates, and I liked this one alot, so, change is good in this case!

2004-04-29T17:15:00.000-06:00

New Gmail account!!
Hey guys, for all of you who didn't get my email (because I didn't have your address), I have a new email address, from gmail. its easy.
Michael.child@gmail.com
Sorry to go changing. But this is somewhat exciting to me (I can see everyone reading this and saying , "man, what a geek!!", but thats ok, "I am whatever you say I am"). I'll go ahead and explain why its exciting to me with numbers :
1. Gmail isn't even fully released. I thought for a long time that to get it you have to do something in the computer world, like what james does or something, and that they weren't really offering it to me. But to my suprise, I went to blogger, and saw it in the corner, and blogger said that they were offering it to bloggers because we type alot or something. Who cares!
2. Gmail is like the best free web based email you could get, but its on steriods. I'm sure most of you reading this have seen in your email inbox "you are approaching your 4 megabyte limit! Please remove some of your stored emails, or upgrade to get 10 megabytes of space for $9.99 a year!", or something along those lines. Well with Gmail, you don't have to do that. They give you 1000 megabytes of space, for free!! Thats like 250 or 300 times as much space as you have right now. That means you never ever have to delete an email. That to me just kicks yahoo's butt. Not that I don't like yahoo, but gmail is way cooler.
3. And since you never delete an email, and since google is the king of all search engines, they combined the two for convenience. There's a built in serch engine so you can sift through all your mail and find the one you're looking for. So that does aways with you looking for that one email that said something, when the title of every one of them is "hey".

Anyway, yeah, so if you need to mail me from now on, the address is michael.child@gmail.com.

2004-04-25T08:45:00.000-06:00

Rainy Day
Colorado weather just likes to kick you when you're down. You may have had a bad week like me. And all that the retarted Colorado weather system can do is snow, or do what its doing now, which is a mix of rain and snow. I wish it would just pick one. Thanks Colorado. You deserve to burn. I hope that many wildfires will come upon your soil this summer, jerk.

2004-04-16T22:53:00.000-06:00

Band name update
Hey guys, I just wanted to let you know that last saturday we did decide on a band name, and its not as deep-meaning as I was hoping for, but after all, its still just a band name.
So the name we came up with is.......(drum roll please)
Jade
I'll tell you the story behind it. We were recording on this machine, (it would take too long to explain what it actually does), but we noticed that one of the files saved on it was named jade, which happens to also be our drummer's nickname. Our drummer is Jared for all of you who don't know him, and everyone's just called him Jade all the time, so I said (frustrated and sarcasticly) "hey guys, how about jade?...." then laughed to myself thinking it would just be one more name that had no chance of making itself through that messy land called a decision. Then to my suprise, "Yeah, that works...." .....................
After all of the frickin hours I spent trying hopelessly to come up with a name, they choose the one I say as a joke. Somewhat ironic, but it does have a story behind it none the less. So there it is.
Also, tommorow morning I'm going to Jareds to finish our song, and we are going to finish our song that we started last week. Oh, and some really cool stuff is opening up for us, as far as playing places. We might get to play for our whole school at an assembly. that would be killer. So yeah, thank you to everyone who checks my sites sometimes, I appreciate it. Its cool to have a web community.

2004-04-15T10:17:00.000-06:00

One of the best/funniest quotes ever said
From the good man at defective yeti, this just cracked me up for some odd reason.

"My barista is jittery and high-strung. I find this comforting, like a barber with well-coifed hair."

2004-04-08T00:01:00.000-06:00

Friday morning, christmas morning.....
Hey guys, thanks for the responses. I agree with all of you. The hard part is that everything I can think of has already been taken, or at least it feels like it. But, we are recording friday morning. And for me, its like christmas day. I know I won't get much sleep on thursday night because it feels like christmas eve, and i never get sleep then. But Its just gonna feel really good for me to hear something that was created in my head finally be put to CD, so I can always have it. Anyway, its kinda late, I better go.

2004-04-06T22:20:00.000-06:00

Band names continued
Ok, I went on to this dumb website that was just an open forum to suggest cool band names. I was there for about an hour, and just cut and pasted the ones that I liked. So here's the thing. My band is recording a few songs on Friday bright and early in the morning, which will be sent in to breakaway shortly after. But we need a band name. So I need you guys that are reading this to read through my list of band names that I found, and tell me which ones you like in the comments thing, now that it is up. From there, I will narrow it down. So here they are:
Terra Incognita
Third love
Shattered bliss
Sphere
Stammer
Sterile
Maxilla
Radiant Red
Readyever
Remnant
Ensuing remnant
Ensuing Glory
Polymorph
Ozone
Ataraxia
Audiolife
Fusion
Quixtoxic

Now if you don't like any of them, please don't leave me a hate message. Great, hope to hear from you!

2004-04-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

Comments
Also, just to let you all know, I'll probably have the comment thing up and running by Sunday night. Thanks for that James! So get ready people to comment your intellectual brains out!

2004-04-03T00:19:00.000-07:00

The Passion of the Christ.......Part 2
So its friday night after the junior high youth service, and I am feeling this longing not to be at home, and waste my night away. Instead, I decide to do the complete opposite, so I go sit through the goriest movie ever made, ..... again. Wow, The Passion of the Christ is, well, if I started to describe what I thought of it, and just tried to lay every thought down that I had during it, you would never have time to read it, and would just skip to the end of this entry. But like I said, this was my second time seeing it. And you know, I'm glad that I went again. Even though I knew how it would end (ok, just had to throw that cheesy "passion" joke in there, along with, " I thought the movie was so much better than the book" :0).
Anyway, as I said when I started this blog, I just want to give you some brain food. Or food for thought if you will. Here it is.
In my english class (that I rarely attend), we have to do a project on a author from a certain time period. Mine just happens to be a man by the name of Ezra Pound. What he is most famous for is his type of literature called "imagery". Now when you're writing in an "imagiste" style, the main focus is to make every word count, and you can be as freeform as you want to do it. There is not much particular rhythm to it, but the point is to not waste one word. Now as I was reading this explanation, thoughts about my life, and where the church is started to float around in my head. "What if I made every single thing I did in my life count, and I didn't waste a single action or thought?" (Now that of course would be close to impossible as long as "the O.C." is airing on TV.) "And why is the body of Christ wasting so much of time and actions focusing on things that don't matter at all?" I've started coming to the conclusion that I need to quit wasting time with things. Quit laying around all day and watching judge judy! Quit saying dumb things that you just wasted good breath on! I wish there was a way. Now this relates to the passion to me (believe me, it does) because as I watched it, the second time through, I noticed that Jesus never wasted any time. He was so focused on loving people. He had the love of God flowing through everything he did. That is so incredible to me.
Also, lately I've just been wondering what it is God has for me in the future. I want to see so bad. I know i'm not the only one in that. And for a while now, I've felt like I have just wasted time in everything I do. I'm under this perception that I have to be doing right now what I will be doing the rest of my life. But after today a the passion, and english class, I've realized that I've been alive about 16 1/2 years. Its not time yet. Waiting for timing is not wasting time. Waiting to start your calling full on is not wasting your time. But if while you're waiting, you begin to look to other things to make you feel complete, instead of taking the time to prepare, now that is wasting your time. Time is very valuble, and we don't have very much of it. But I want to encourage everyone not to focus on what you could be doing, but focus on what you are doing, and even more, focus on God above everything else. If doing what you're called to be doing is coming before focusing on God and his love, then you're in the wrong timing. Let God take care of it.
Anyway, a thousand words later, If you haven't seen the passion of the christ, or you have, I recommend seeing it, or seeing it again. Its one thing to hear about what Jesus did for me, but is another thing to experience it.
I don't know exactly what God has for me, or what I'll be doing 10 years from now, but I know that in this moment I am going to follow God with everything I am. And that my friends, is not wasting time at all, but rather making time for the future.
I'll leave you guys with the chorus of a song a wrote recently called I want you. It talks about choosing God in this time, in this moment:

You see through all the pain
You see through all the lies
You look inside of me
I'm choosing you this time
I'll post again as soon as I get a chance, or feel like it. I actually got a cool email from someone I know that i haven't talked to in a long time, and they told me that something I said really impacted them. Thats very good to hear, kinda weird since i'm just saying whats on my mind, but still cool. Peace out!

2004-03-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a while.....
Yeah, so I think the last time I blogged was on like feb. 25th or something, which is way too long. So sorry about that (to all 4 of you who read my blog anyway!). But I thought I would just clue you in on what's been happening in my life.
I am a person who needs change. I seek it. There are only a few things I can do repeatedly. And so lately that much needed change has been taking place in my life. I've rediscovered joy in doing things that I got tired of doing. I've made some changes in relationships that brought me much peace. I've decided to do things 100% instead of 50%. And by doing all those things, I used to just think if I took care of things and changed that it would be more work, and my life would be consumed by just trying to change, and it wouldn't be worth it. But I've found through all the work, I am free, and that burdens that I didn't even know were there are now lifted. I've become a much different person because I am now free from alot of things that onced burdened me. And its awesome.
Also, my attitudes have changed about alot of things, mainly at the church. Two weeks ago, I was very tired of youth group, and also very tired of d-group. I felt that all that our youth group was about was following a set of rules. Just one more checklist that I would have to look at before I made any decision at all. But I've found that being in leadership, God's given me a higher calling. He's given me a higher standard to live by. That doesn't me I should set up rules because I need to be anal about everything i do, but it means that God wants me to be different. God entrusts me to lead his presence in when in worship at youth, and whether I want to think so or not, I do have to carry myself a certain way. But I don't have to be anal about it, and always make sure I'm not breaking a rule. I can focus more on God's love, and his grace for me to get through things. SO yeah, my attitude about all that is good now.
And lastly, I finally am in a band of my own. Its made up of me on vocals and guitar, bobby chavez on lead guitar, madsion (my bro) on bass, and Jared Lucci on drums (you may know who that is). Me and bobby have just been screwing around making up some music together, and we decided that it sucked wothout a band. And that it did, until we finally decided to go for it. We got together @ Jared's house, and everything came together. And for anyone who is into music, I'm gonna tell you right now to get ready for what we're bringing to the music industry. Its definetly something different, and fresh, and innovative, and not just for the sake of being all those things, but because thats how we all just flow together. I believe that the (christian) music industry needs something different, and new, and that the same old crap is just making everyone turn to something new in the secular music industry. Like my dad was saying sunday at church, "People will value what you do if you can find a problem and fix it. The world has problems, and how well you fix them will equal your success", or something along those lines. The christian music industry is facing a huge problem right now, and that is that no one is buying the music, which in fact is a big problem. We intend to fix that. And now to my next point, which is a band name. I would ask you to leave a comment, if I could figure out how to put the frickin comment code in the HTML. So I need some help with that too. James, just send me an email @ ardentworshiper@yahoo.com, and fill me in on how to put the haloscan code in, cuz you're good at that stuff. So anyway, we have 2 choices as of right now, the first being the word FERVID, which basically means ardent or passionate. Or , the phrase ENSUING GLORY. If you have any suggestions or ideas for a band name, please post them on your blog for now, and then leave them on the comments thing whenever I get that up. So yeah, being a part of this band has showed me that there is something big out there for me, and I have every intention of taking by the horns, and spinning it around and taming to make it mine. (I don't know if that made any sense to anyone.....It didn't really make sense to me...whatever, you get it.)
So there ya have it, a glimpse into the life of a Child...Michael child....Hah, I've always wanted to fit that in somewhere. ......Its late, shut-up. I'll probably post something else pretty soon, maybe, who knows..........

2004-02-25T22:54:00.001-07:00

Identity Crisis
So yeah, I decided to read Worship Junky's Blog, and the first thing I read was that Basically, if you didn't know my first name was michael, then you would think I'm a girl..... Cool....... Man James, that lifts my spirits so much ;) So anyway, I'm making a decision to make it clear that I am a man, and that I like girls. From here on out, no more talking about emotions, unless It is anger or, well.....anger.... And, I am only gonna talk about cool things, like motorcycles and hot girls...... And I'm gonna start scratching myself alot more...... You know, more manly things. Just so the term "metrosexual-tendencies" won't be stuck to me forever. Well I would love to talk more, but I am going to go eat some red meat, and have a beer with the guys, then work out. Peace out

2004-02-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

2004-02-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

Skipping Second.........Again
Yeah, well you guessed it. Man, you'd think since I've been going to school for 11 years now that I might be good at it, you'd think. But I just keep getting worse at it. Gees...... Procrastination. Its a very bittersweet quality. You love the fact you don't do the work, but hate the fact at the same time. But there is an upside to all of this-- I get to sit here and talk to you all about it, and it gives me time to share my thoughts. See.... the assignment I have to do makes me want to pull my hair out, then pull my teachers hair out, then pull your hair out. Its a dumb research paper over crap I could care less about, and It is so structured. If you know me, you know that me and structure don't get along. It would be hard for me to do even if I did care about it because of the structure. But I don't, so its near impossible. 11 years of school........ I got to work on this. See, college will be easy, even next year will be easy, because I am taking classes that I want to take. Like graphic design, web design, mass media, trigonometry (seems interesting....:-<), and college will be even better. But some dumb research paper thats supposed to "prepare me for college", man that is retarted. Ok, I'll stop griping now and maybe get to work on it. So in the words of my good friends at weekend update on saturday night live, "have a good evening and a pleasant tommorow"......

2004-02-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Words of the wise
My 2 quotes today are about keeping your mouth shut. I have alot of trouble with this concept at times, so I will post these in case you are the same way.....

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)"

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
Dorothy Nevill"

2004-02-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Griping
I'm writing this in response to Erika's post on "Worship Styles--including guys jumping off of chairs".
Here's the thing. I agree with everything that was written. I believe that everyone has their own way of worshiping God. I think its awesome that God set it up that way. But I have to write in defense being one of the guys mentioned as "always telling people to jump."
You know, I've been on both sides of leadership. I've been a drummer, where I followed the leader, and I've been the leader, for some time now. I've learned its very easy to sit back and "gripe" and to tell your opinion, when you are not the leader. Its like some liberal always being a "monday morning quarterback to the president". Thats way easy. Whats hard to do is to always be in agreement. Even being in leadership now, it is still difficult sometimes for me to agree with the leaders that are above me. SO let me explain why as leaders, we tell people to jump.
If you look at worship now, and then you look at worship 5 months ago, they are almost non-resemblent of each other. I remember months at a time having God show up, because people were hungry. Then come about November, things started to change. Peoples excitement started to diminish and fade off. And I'm not going to judge it by whether or not people were dancing, but I am going to judge it by whether God was showing up. And when november rolled around, God was not showing up, and neither were people. People weren't dancing in worship like they used to. People weren't focused on God anymore. Numbers started to go down. Its not that people just stopped jumping all of the sudden.
Honestly erika, I think your thought process was very immature. And when I say immature, I mean you wrote your blog down without giving yourself time to finish thinking it through.
In my opinion, God has given the worship leader a keen sense of his presence, a stronger sense than what the average worshipper might have. Worship leaders know where the people's hearts are at. Its really not fair to gripe about what the worship leader is doing until you've been the worship leader. Believe it or not, at times there is an immense amount of pressure when you have to lead a congregation of people inot worship. More than alot of people know. So here's where I am at, and I think I can speak for scott also when I say this. We can sense Gods presence, and we can sense whether people are into worship, because of how much we feel God's presence. So when all of the sudden in November, after things had been going great with worship, peoples hearts were there, things just began to stop. And when you're the worship leader, that sucks. For a few reasons. You feel like maybe you did something wrong, you feel like what you're doing is obsolete, and you begin to lose you're passion for leading people. Thats when it becomes so that every time you get up to lead it can become a drag, because people's hearts aren't there. What's wrong? What happened? You don't know. It sucks, so then you become desperate. Thats why me and him tell people to jump around and be excited for God. Its a desperate cry for help to get worship back to how it used to be. Every time we say " Guys, God deserves thiss much......or, Guys jump around a little bit and get excited for God", this is a cry for help! Imagine trying to act in a sitcom on TV and the rating all of the sudden went down. Imagine the pressure from that. Now you could also sit here and read this and say to yourself, " well when you lead, its not about the people, its about worshiping God." Unless you're a worship leader, and you've ever leading a congregation in a whole worship service, please don't even begin to think that.
SO erika, I'm really not trying to be a jerk, or to publicly falsify everything that you're writing, but I'm more trying to get you to see things a little bit clearer, and get another perspective. I agree with the fact that we all worship differently and all that stuff, but leading people is a different story.
So in conclusion of all these scattered thoughts, when me or scott say things like, "if you aren't jumping, what are you here for, or jump around and get excited", we didn't start saying those things because people aren't jumping, but you have to look into the heart of the matter. If God is not showing up in corporate worship, the people are not hungry, and we, as worship leaders, do our best to try to get the people to be excited again. And even more to the heart of the matter, me and scott want to see peoples lives changed through worship. We want to see God move, and we can't make people do that. We can only encourage them. Sure, yeah, some one can stare straight and have a more intimate time with God if there heart is there than someone who is dancing. But the reason we say those things is we can feel that the people are hungry. And when times are dry, then things can become desperate. I don't know what will happen to fusion worship in the future. I don't know if it will ever be as good as it was. I don't know if people's hearts will ever be the same as they were. BUt as worship leaders we will do our best.

2004-02-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

Newsflash
I am a nerd.........

2004-02-09T13:55:00.000-07:00

Morning person
I don't know if you remember any of the past blogs I have written, But you might remember me saying, "we have the power to become whatever or whoever you want to be." So I decided I'm gonna change my life up a bit, and become a morning person. The reason I am telling you this is because I figure someone will ask me about it, then I will have to be accountable for what I write. So yeah, 5:30 am tommorow. Bring it on............

2004-02-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Very Nice Weekend
I decided today that just because I tend to be intellectual most of the time doesn't mean that others that read this are. So what the heck, I'll just write about nothing. So as the title states, I did have a very nice weekend. I've decided to take a month break from leading worship at youth group for a few reasons. I didn't have to think about leading anyone, I didn't have to make a songlist up, I didn't have to do anything. So I didn't. I've been waiting a long time for God to basically intervine in my life. And I think that happened this weekend. I'm starting to become who I used to be, and its different because I had a hard time remembering who I used to be. Circumstances have the power to bring you down only if you give them the power to bring you down. And for a long time, I let them bring me down. But after this weekend, I am beginning to become who I used to be. And I like it. The way all of this came about was from some youth services we had and also a sunday morning "big-people" church service. All three were life changing for me. My perception of God is changed from what it used to be. God can do that, because there are so many facets of him. We just see him how we need to at the time. SO yeah, then I got to hang out with one of my best friends, Jaime, so that was fun also. Just letting everyone thats reading this know I had a good weekend.

2004-02-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

The Butterfly effect
This weekend, I went to see the butterfly effect, starring Ashton Kutcher, and Amy Smart (I think thats her name). I was somewhat hesitant, to go to it, as I had heard from a few people that it was somewhat crude. And Yes, it was. But first, let me give you the premise of the movie. The opening seen, is a definition of what the butterfly effect actually is. " A single flap of a butterfly's wings can create a typhoon halfway around the world." A very very thought provoking statement, but we will get into that later. Anyway, the movie starts out showing his childhood experiences, which are very very disturbing. During these experiences, they start out fine, but he then blacks out during them, and wakes up not knowing what happened, and usually being in alot of trouble. Then, the movie jumps to later in his life, in his college dorm room. He finds some journals that he was instructed to write by a psychologist who said it might brings some memory back, and he sits down to start reading them. He wrote all of the entries down right after he would have a blackout during these horrific experiences. He wants to see if after 7 years, his memory might have returned. So as he's reading them, every thing begins to shake around, and suddenly he is back in the experience, during the time he blacked out, and finally gets to see what really happened. After doing this a few times, he realizes that he can change the outcome of these events, and eventually changes what happens later in life. But in doing this, things never come out as they are supposed to. He realizes that the more changes he makes, the worse things become. One small change in his past can effect who he is, and who his childhood friends are.
This movie is honestly a 10 on the intensity factor. I walked out of the theater being emotionally drained. I love movies that do that to me. The only movies I can match to this are war movies. But this took the next step of a war movie, and worked my intellectual side of my brain, which of course I liked. The movie reminded me of an independent film, but had a really big actor in it. It was somewhat like the movie "memento". So as far as the movie review part goes, I thought it was very crude, but nothing you couldn't close your eyes to. That sounds bad, but the movie is worth sitting through in my opinion.
SO I began to think about the butterfly effect, and how it relates to me. I thought of my parents. What if, when my grandparents had lived in Gary indiana, had decided not to move to merrillville, (which is a way better city than gary, much safer). My mom would have never went to merrillville high school, which means that she would have never met my dad. Which means, I might not have ever been born. Which means in turn that I would not be sitting here typing this blog, and making your brain think. Wow, what would the world be like with out me? That also means that my dad probably would have never pastored impact Christian Center, and all the people I know would be somewhere else right now! I better stop, I'm hurting my brain just trying to think about that.
So yet again, I hope this makes you think and think more. Thats my goal.

2004-02-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

Skipping Second
As many of you well know, I can at times, well most of the time, be a very avid procrastinator. You could probably call my blog "Ardent Procrastinator" instead of "Ardent_Fueler". My tag line would be "fueling laziness for my generation". But anyway, my name has yet again caught up to me today, as I am sitting in the computer lab skipping my second period class, which happens to be english class. I had some homework to do over the weekend. And of course I just kept telling myself, "just wait until monday, and do it before you go to work." That evolved into "ok, its monday before work, but I just got back from the movie, and my brain is too fried to outline quotes for an english paper", which then yet again evolved into, "I'll just wait until after work, come home and stay up a little bit later and finish it." Which finally evloved into, "I'll get up just a little bit earlier and finish it.", which is what brought me to this computer lab sitting quietly and blogging my thoughts.
I wish that they made some kind of pill that would help you get motivated to do things that you really dread and don't care at all about doing. I'm gonna invent that one day, and I think I could buy my own country with how much money I make. Sometimes I wonder "If I really don't want to do something, should I even do it at all? Isn't life about getting what you want, and following your desires?" Then I wake back up to the sound of my dad yelling at me to get my room clean and take out the trash. But secretly, in the back of my head, I'm saying " My time will come......"
So I guess the moral of this story is that I've figured out that life is so much more than following your own desires. And sometimes you might have to do some dumb assignments to reach your goals. At least I can learn from this situation. I know now that I will never finish something before school in the morning. I guess something good can come out of not doing your homework and skipping class because of it.

2004-01-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

Life's Calling
So I said I would update this blog as often as I could, and I must confess I broke that promise. I just couldn't think of anything to write about. But then I realized that I could be intellectual, so I remembered something that I could write about. Something that is always on my mind, so much so that it is just part of it. I have trained myself to ask the very important question, "If I do this, am I gonna regret it later in my life?" No matter what I do, whether It be writing a paper or leading worship at youth. The way I see it, is that we all make choices, we all decide whats gonna happen. We make our own destinies. In the book of proverbs, it says "as a man thinketh in his heart, So is he." I've come to the revelation, that I could make myself whoever I want to be, depending on how much of my thoughts I put into it. I've realized that if I want to be a backstreet boy bad enough, and put enough priority on that desire, then I can become freakin' Nick Carter, dance like him, dress like him, have the exact body shape as him, talk like him, and become a Nick Carter clone. Same if I just wanted to be a good business man. I would start reading about business, and I could suceed at it.
Here's where my problem is. I lose compassion for people. I lose comapssion for people that live in poverty, and for people who complain about things all the time. Its not an arrogance, but more of a "dude, you can do whatever you put your mind to, so get off your lazy butt and go to college!!" This is what I am getting at. One of my goals in life is to educate that idea to people. If you are reading this right now, Remember this!!- You have the mental power to be whoever you want to, and accomplish what ever you want to. You will regret it when you're 50 years old, and you are sitting in your chair, after working a job for the last 20 years, that is the same thing over and over again, and you were miserable 19 of those 20 years. I think God has called each and every one of us to be history makers. Take risks! If you fail, then at least you tried. Just live your life, and don't let your life take control of you.
Anyway, back to that you create your evironment stuff. You create your environment. If you are tired of things, or you seek alot of change in your life. I'll give you an exaple. I am a musician. My life revolves around music. I like playing in front of people now, but I wasn't always that way. I used to be a pretty modest, reserved drummer. But as time went on, I wanted badly to start singing and playing the guitar. In about 3 months time, I was singing. Leading worship at youth. And now, since I've made extroversion and fearlessness a part of who I am, I have a need to get up in front someone and just play. I hope everyone one day will realize what I am talking about. Having complete contro over who you are, and the things you do. So I hope this entry made you think, and I'll try to come up with another one soon, maybe even a part 2 to this entry.

2004-01-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

Powerball Winner Has More Money Stolen
Before you read this, click on this fox news and read this story about the man who won the largest jackpot sum ever. Now when I was reading this, i was thinking to myself what I would do if I won $100 million. I then concluded that I would first buy a car with unbreakable windows, I wouldn't carry around $500,000 dollars in cash, and I just might be smart enough, knowing that other people know I just won the lottery, to protect my cash. One thing that kind of stood out to me was that people drugged him in a strip club, and stole his money, which raised 3 very important questions: 1) After seeing Whittakers picture, what was a man that old doing in a strip club, 2) what was a man that old doing in a strip club with $500,000 dollars cash, and 3)how would one spend $500,000 in a strip club? I'm 16, still learning things and getting used to things in this world, but one thing I will never get used to is stupid people. If you're reading this, and you're a stupid person, please don't be offended, but rather go and read a book, and try to shove some common sense into your head.
Moral of this story: It never ceases to amaze me the stupid things people do.

2004-01-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

Intellectual
Just to let everyone that ends up reading this one day (all three of you), I am a very intellectual person. God gave me a brain, and so I like to work it out and think about things that are a little bit deeper than say talking about what happened in school or something. So If you read my blog, I will challenge you to think hard, and question things.

2004-01-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

ArdentFueler
My name is michael. I know someone who blogs, and I think it's something to do when I'm bored, so I hope I can keep it cool and happenin like the others I have seen.