My inspiration for writing this is a worship leader that battled cancer and claimed healing from God. After becoming fairly popular from his story and his music about his battle, it was revealed that he didn’t actually have cancer, but had been involved in a life of lies to convince everyone around him that he was sick. As the truth came out, the true battle that he was fighting was the battle with pornography.

This story of lies and deception has really bugged me since I learned about it a year and a half ago. Since the truth came out, the song this guy wrote has increasingly become popular. And this popularity in light of the lies surrounding the song, has really caused conflict in my heart as I’ve sung this song. It has really agonized me.

But tonight I realized this guy who wrote the song was really seeking healing from his ‘cancer’ that he was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk about. It was not a cancer of the body, but a cancer of the mind and soul. Pornography had infected him and was causing him tremendous pain. That same pain has hurt more men than any actual cancer of the body. And I can attest that God can heal men from this battle with pornography.

Now when I sing the song Healer, it’ll have a different meaning. It’s not just a plea for physical healing of our bodies, but a healing of our hearts, souls, and minds. Below are some of the lyrics from this plea for healing:

I believe You’re my Healer
I believe You are all I need
I believe You’re my Portion
I believe You’re more than enough for me
Jesus You’re all I need
Nothing is impossible for You
You hold my world in Your hands

God, I pray for all men that are battling pornography. I pray that they will seek your healing and support with this battle. Nothing, not even a battle with pornography, is impossible for You.

Merry Christmas!

For the past year and a half we’ve been lucky to have been lent a Leprecon LP-X24 lighting control console. This has been a really nice board, but now we’re needing to give it back to it’s owners who have another use for it. As we move forward with expanding into some intelligent lights in the coming year, I don’t really want to spend a ton of money on a new controller which could easily cost $3,500-$10,000. So, I’m exploring some options of replacing the controller on the extreme cheap.

So, we currently have 24 microplex channels and 5 DMX channels, all of which are non-intelligent lights (not moving or color changing). Adam Callender at Granger Community Church posted a while back about how they started into a High End Hog controller system by simply purchasing something like a HOG 3PC DMX Widget and controlling their lights using a spare computer running the HOG 3PC Software. This option appears to cost about $1200 $1,700 plus the cost of a computer. And presuming we went with a real HOG lighting console in the future, the DMX Widget would continue to be part of that.

But, then that got me to thinking, “Haven’t I seen some other cheap or free software for lighting controllers?”

Well, after a bit more searching online, it appears that we could purchase a lower end (no pun intended) USB DMX Interface for $151. This would let us drive a DMX universe using software like the following:

• MagicQ (windows, mac, or linux)
• StageConsole (windows)
• miniStageConsole (windows or mac)
• QLC (linux)

Below are two web sites that I found with some more details on cheap/free DMX control:

• http://www.chromakinetics.com/DMX/
• http://www.opendmx.net/

So… I’m looking for any input or experience with any of these cheap/free DMX options. At this entry price point, I’m just tempted to give several of them a try and see if they meet our needs. But, I’d love to get feedback from others who may have already gone down this path.

Here’s what it looked like from my driveway between 9:15-10:00p CDT:

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

by Marianne Williamson
from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

This poem struck a chord with me when I heard it. After looking up Marianne Williamson online, I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with her on a lot of her philosophy and theology. But still, I like this poem.

What do you think? Do we often play small instead of shining like the stars?

Effingham, IL

• height: 198 ft
• built: 2001
• satellite map

Groom, TX

• height: 190 ft
• built: 1995
• satellite map
• some cool photos

Edmond, OK

• height: 163 ft
• built: 1996
• map and details
• satellite map
• This is at one of the LifeChurch.tv campuses that my church is networked with.

Castro Valley, CA

• 3 Crosses, side by side
• height: 100ft
• satellite map

And for a little context, the tallest cross in the world…
Valle de los Caídos

• near Madrid, Spain
• height: 500 ft 152.4-meters)
• built: 1940-1959

Have you seen any of these in person OR do you know of other huge crosses like this?

Coming next… Colossal Statues of Jesus. (not really)

Today I ran across a blog entry from a site that takes a similar approach to sharing color palettes, COLOURlovers.com. In this blog entry they show the color palettes of a few very famous paintings. These are obviously some nice color combinations that I should try sometime.

• Have you tried using Kuler or COLOURlovers?
• Have any favorite color palettes to share?

But today, I discovered a website devoted to free use image searches:
http://yotophoto.com/

This looks really simple to use and found a lot of useful images that my recent home-grown searches hadn’t found.

For those interested, here are a couple of Google Coop searches that I’ve been testing, for image and media searching:

• Free Image Search
• Church Video Search

And an earlier attempt to hack Google Image Search:

• Free Image Search

But, for now, yotophoto.com seems like a much better tool.

Anyone else know of similar tools for searching for media useful in the church?

Church Marketing Lab
http://www.flickr.com/groups/cfcc/

Seems like a great concept.

Worship Sets:

LifeChurch.tv South OKC:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=216314816
LifeChurch.tv Tulsa:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256184053
Mars Hill Music:
http://rss.marshillchurch.org/mhcmusic

Video Podcasts:

LifeChurch.tv:
http://www.lifechurch.tv/rss/messagecast-itunes.xml
Don’t Waste Your Life:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DWYL
Mosaic:
http://mosaic.org/podcast/videofeed/
Mars Hill:
http://rss.marshillchurch.org/mhcsermonvideo

Anyway, Anthony Coppedge recently wrote an article on this very concept and shares some practical tips of how to make this more practical.
How to plan worship well in advance