Riverbend Church, Austin, TX

Wow! A lot of people are here for the conference! I flew in from Nashville, rented a car and drove to the church. Registration was a piece of cake. I picked up my name badge (supplied by ROLAND) and my handy-dandy messenger bag (with all the sponsors logos on it) and headed to the main auditorium for the first night of worship. The opening line was, “Can you hear me now?”. I darted my eyes to the soundmen way up in the balcony (as if I could see what was happening) and finally the mic came on. All through the night I found it very distracting when they had just the alto mic blasting or the choir was off until midway through a “choir” part of a song they managed to turn them on. I wonder if they know that you can use the lower thirds on Media Shout. They’re teaching a class on that this week, you would think they would know how to do that. It seemed like they were a sentence behind on every song, which didn’t help with the sound already bringing a distraction. The audience of worship leaders, band members, media personell and worship teams were just spectacting. They were all excited to be there, but couldn’t participate when the new artists like “Sarah Kelly” performed. She had an awesome voice, but wasn’t a worship leader, no one could follow her. She was a great concert artist though. The audience was eager to join in, but again was lost through the new/ancient ode songs. They were promoting a new project that puts music to the oldest worship songs known, from hundreds of years before the epistles.

Matt Redman

It wasn’t until Matt Redman took to the stage that FINALLY the audience could participate. They were so excited, songs they knew, songs that you could sing with! Blessed Be the Name! Matt kept a good flow of worship.

The main speaker, Skip Heitzig, Pastor of Calvary of Albuquerque, was great! He brought to light how worship is an eternal practice. He spoke from the days of Moses, when God had Isreal praise Him, to the 24 elders and all the angels in Revelation praising around the throne. He got an “amen” applause when He mentioned that we should NEVER take the blood out of our songs, for it is still and will forever be praised! Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Even in Heaven they praise the act of Calvary, it is eternal. The actions of God prompt us to respond in praise and worship.

Paul Baloche

I’ll have more to report tomorrow. I’m planning on visiting the 50 plus exhibitors under a tent. Hopefully Hurricane Dolly won’t find us! I didn’t bring an umbrella!