The Lonestar Weekend

I met Robert and Kathleen almost five years when they hosted one of my concerts as part of 33Miles. One show turned into a ministry influenced by my old band's name and 33 The Ministry was birthed and now hosts numerous Christian concerts in south Texas every year.

The view from the Denver airport never disappoints and although I was missing my family this view from the jet bridge always reminds me that God is always at work, even creating sunsets.

I picked up my bat mobile from Budget in Dallas and crashed at my sister and brother-in-laws house for a few winks before I hit the road for Kilgore.

The bat mobile flew across the only real altitude changes in TX, the over-passes on my way to Kilgore.

The weather couldn't have been better, and it we spent a great few hours in the sun singing and preaching in the city park. The south is so cool and it was great to see old friends.

On Sunday morning I guest lead worship with my good friend Eric Michael at Lake Highlands United Methodist Church in Plano which is one of my favorite things to do. I love that my job keeps me in church every Sunday (wherever it may be) and I'm refreshed and inspired by watching and joining my colleagues in their various roles whenever possible. Eric is a gifted musician, leader and resourceful creative who has turned a dated gym into an inspirational place of worship. Since we have such similar roles as worship leaders and maintain music careers we had a ton to talk about and a lot of notes to compare.

Of course you can't go to Dallas without a meal at the best "Mexican" restaurant in America.

It was a tiring weekend but a blast to be on the road singing songs about my family and Jesus.

Here is the Church...

When Calvary Bible offered me a job last October I felt apprehensive and skeptical of the whole mobile church thing. As a touring musician I feel at home hauling road cases, but after years of pinching my fingers and dropping things on my toes the idea of an extra set up on Sunday morning sounded tiring. The strength of our calling to Calvary far exceeded being a little groggy on Sunday morning and now after almost a year of "mobile church" I've discovered several things. As I've read my leadership books and thought about volunteerism I've theorized that a team of the right volunteers can do more than paid staff and the people of Calvary have convinced me that it's true. It is inspiring seeing committed, enthusiastic people joining together in a shared purpose completing a task that each couldn't do on their own. Mobile church has shown me this.
But the end is in sight. I've been impressed with Calvary's financial stewardship and lack of debt which I've discovered is unusual in the church. Calvary will break ground on the Erie campus building in a few weeks and we'll be in our new building within the year.

Producing You are Exalted

Cross to Crown Record from Collin Stoddard on Vimeo.
Buy You are Exalted here.

This is a project I am proud to have produced and helped write, thanks to the executive producer Doug Goodin for your vision, leadership and talent that made record become a reality. Cross to Crown is an incredible ministry that resources churches by encouraging and equipping pastors through their seminary, books that they write and publish, and their music.

I appreciate and support the intentionality that went into creating You are Exalted. While hand-crafting, shaping and massaging the process and continually looking at the horizon is a long and sometimes painful process, it lead to making this record a huge success. One of the challenges of the creative process with any new artist is the amount of dialog and conversation that goes into discussing the heart, the message and the sound of a project. Most artists (even those who have never recorded a project before) have an idea of their sound and can fairly easily be identified by picking up a guitar and singing a few words. While Cross to Crown had the heart, vision and a general idea of the musical style, I was creating and aiming for a sound that we only had a description of and not necessarily a sonic example. This process takes a lot of trust for everyone involved: for Cross to Crown to trust that I hear what they're expecting to hear, and that I can deliver it, and for me that they'll like what comes from a tracking session! God was evidently involved in every process of this project and Cross to Crown was one of the best and easiest ministries I've ever worked with and I look forward to our next record together.

A little inside information about talent on the record, Adam Silverman played drums and I always appreciate his talent and contribution to almost everything I work on from my time in 33Miles to producing projects. We've known each other for a long time and it's a blessing working with someone who knows what to play when I don't know how to explain it. Cal Joslin who helped start the CCM group Sidewalk Prophets and I went to Belmont played bass. Matt Reviere, a session guitar player currently touring with 2012 Idol winner Scotty McCreery who I also went to Belmont with played acoustics and electrics. Tyler Ewing is an Emmy Award winning composer and the most talented arranger I've ever met and and he provided the string arrangements and tracking (I also went to Belmont with Tyler....) Jason Hall is an audio engineer who I refer to as a magician and mixed and mastered the record. (Sigh...yes, I also went to Belmont with Jason.) PS, You're welcome, Belmont, my next student loan payment is on the way.

Go buy this record! This year is filling up quickly for me in my studio. We are settling into our new house in Firestone, CO and my studio is now up and running it's new location with lots of new projects on the books.

I Worship When...

Calvary is working through a series called Stronger and this Sunday Adrian is speaking on growing stronger in worship. As a musician, music always comes to mind when I consider worship and I love to worship God through music. Everyone worships God differently and I shot and edited this video we're showing on Sunday of my friends sharing how they worship the Lord. I upgraded to Final Cut Pro X yesterday and it changed my life. I recorded audio on my Zoom H4N and being that I had such a limited time frame to shoot and edit this video and was using a new video editing platform I didn't spend much time editing the audio. What you hear is all straight off the SD card. I'm pretty impressed with that device!!

I Worship God When... from Collin Stoddard on Vimeo.

We Always Bring Our Best

Traveling is tough. Traveling with a family is tougher, and I always find myself dreading a road trip with our family of four, regardless of the distance. As a touring artist I find myself sometimes dragging my family to the strangest places experiencing the weirdest things, but we always grow closer together and discover life changing things we never would have encountered had we stayed where it's safe.

Drive south on I-35 from Kansas into Oklahoma and you'll see asphalt stretching miles in front of you, shrubbery, and that's all. Then just before you reach Oklahoma City and your bladder's about to burst you reach Edmond, Oklahoma. You may not remember the small suburb of Oklahoma City, but you probably remember this.

LifeChurch.tv is one of the most innovative and largest growing churches with an incredibly unique model of planting churches. They inherited this cross when they bought the land of a large struggling church which now houses their central offices. Completely updated and remodeled, LifeChurch's central offices aren't just a collection of office spaces, it's a think-tank and well oiled-machine overflowing with great vision and leadership to their growing 10 campus church.

Last weekend as we turned the four hour drive from Wichita, KS to Lawton, OK into a seven hour drive we found ourselves cruising right past the massive cross and I called my friend Chris Kuti who serves as the worship pastor at the Edmund campus and he gave up his afternoon to catch up and show us their facility. With the exception of the Cove in North Carolina, I have not been this impressed with a Christian ministry. 

Even though they won't all admit it, almost everyone I've interacted with who works in ministry has good ideas and desires to see growth in their flock, in quantity and quality. Blaine Hogan, the creative director of Willow Creek Church says in his book, Untitled, "No one cares about your ideas or how great a pitch-person you are if you can't execute your vision." What I saw at LifeChurch this weekend was great execution, vision, and leadership.

The campus aesthetically matches the visual branding of Lifechurch with hues of grey and red with their vision and values printed everywhere. Everybody who steps foot in LifeChurch will know what they are passionate about. Look around and you'll see that they practice what they preach. People are attracted to that.

LifeChurch believes in sharing the gospel and equipping every church, not just their multiple campuses, so much that they offer all of their resources completely free on their website. In many churches as giving is low and budgets are tight I personally have been greatly effected by churches response to freeze spending and hoard what they have. LifeChurch does the opposite with their resources and it's inspiring to see how many they have.

While LifeChurch looked awesome and exemplified quality, the articulation and execution of Craig Groeschel's vision inspired me the most. Every day I discuss vision and creative ideas with my wife, my pastor, my promotors and my creative team. In every discussion I hear the obstacles of implementation. While I've been guilty of making excuses I appreciated the example of pursuing a vision and seeing God bless a ministry with explosive growth. 

"We Always Bring Our Best." Out of all the prints throughout our walk this one stood out to me the most and has been ringing in my head all week. There are times I've been guilty of not bringing my best and I've experience the negative implications, or sometimes just lack of fruit. I've brought my best as often as possible and I've experienced the fruit. The fruit is inspiring, people are attracted to excellence and passion and want to partner with those who do great work. It's not rocket-science. Who do you hire to do a service for you? The person who does it the best. People (believers and non-believers alike) are attracted to excellence. What restaurants do you rave about? What parts of town do you like to visit? What products do you buy? What do you argue about with your friends? My assumption is that the answer to all of those questions includes the phrase, "the best." 

In Wichita last weekend we stayed with an airplane enthusiast who is rebuilding a Fairchild PT19 warplane. Although I don't really care about airplanes, I found myself wanting to just hang out in Wayne's hanger for hours just watching him work on his airplane and admire the precision and excellence of the best woodworking I've ever seen. He and his partners are confident their quality craftsmanship will win numerous awards at the next Oshkosh and potentially make them an extra one-hundred-thousand dollars. 

I played at Lawton First Assembly in Lawton, OK several days later and saw their newly installed Nexo sound system, their gorgeous building with Pottery Barn couches and coffee tables and gorgeous paint colors. In addition to their aesthetics they went to great lengths to make me comfortable and honored. They succeeded and evidently everyone who joins them feels the same way. In a town of 100,000 people they are a thriving, influential mega-church.

While I'm convicted about the areas in my life I don't bring my best, I want for my family, myself, my creative team, my musicians to always bring their best. Imagine how inspiring and awesome life would be if everyone did their best! I'd love to experience that! Regardless of the affects of doing everything to the best of our ability, God asks us to bring our best and it honors him. That's why we do it. Where do you need to bring your best?

A Tedious Process

Our move to Colorado has really been a three month process and I've had enough work that I haven't been able to temporarily shut down operations! The show must go on and in hindsight I find it humorous the places I found myself editing tracks and comping vocals. Check out a few of them!!

For the first time since our college days at Belmont I got to work with Matt Reviere, an incredible guitar  player on a record from Cross to Crown Ministries. Much of my producing these days is done long distance which has major pro's and a few cons. My interaction with studio players these days looks like this. Yes. This is conversation via FaceTime. Thank you Steve Jobs.

One of the biggest benefits of tracking parts long distance is that it can be a more cost effective way to produce a record with Nashville studio players. They don't have to travel to me and I don't have to travel to Nashville and we achieve a quality product similar to what we would in a Nashville studio. The downside is flexibility, but thanks to my good friends who will take a long distance studio gig from me they are always willing to re-track parts that aren't exactly what I had in mind. We share files over DropBox and I do a bunch of editing!

Tracking this way does make me miss the chemistry and camaraderie of tracking and hanging out in the studio with excellent musicians, but we get to work in our personal studios on our time. Pretty neat deal.

Make it Easy.

For the sake of your attention span and in light of my last blog which took about 20 minutes to read, I'll make this one a little easier. Our church meets in a school. Calvary is a special place with an abundance of volunteers which makes set up super easy...when everyone knows what to do. I made enemies of our tech crew pretty quickly by telling them to carve the sometimes one-and-a-half hour set up time to thirty minutes. I knew this was a lot to ask, after all, Sunday morning at 6:30am isn't a fun time to be awake let alone push carts and patch audio cables. Groups of people are capable of building incredible things together, just look at the Pyramids. Our "pyramid" was a thirty minute setup time and it started with getting everyone on the same page. I prefer to call it getting everyone on the same stage...plot. See how I did that? I probably insulted Illustrator and Adobe by using their baby to create a vector file of our stage plot, but I say always use the best tool for the job. Always.

    

I give you the Calvary stage plot. I took our set up team out to coffee and handed them this and an order of how to set things up: (I added the first one for effect) 1. Don't hate me. 2. Power 3. Avioms 4. Instruments 5. Audio Note: Coil the excess at the instrument. My tech director and I made a 25 ft quad box power cable that probably would have kept the Titanic from sinking (somehow). Aviom CAT5 cable runs on top of the quad box (we purchased the Aviom power distribution unit which replaced the need to have each Aviom individually powered, and audio cables run on top of that. The biggest thing that drives me bonkers on a stage is spaghetti. Save it for the Italian restaurant. XLR cables are notorious for not working, but you don't know that they don't work until everything is patched on top of them and you're starting sound check! Coil the excess at the instrument so there isn't a huge pile of linguini in front of the patch bay, and make sure all audio cables are laid on top and it makes re-patcing and tracing cables so much easier. Try it, you will thank me. Even if you don't set up every week, try it. For some reason, perhaps extra intentionality, we have less problems when we are tidier. The result? 25 minute set up time. What that translates into? Extra sleep. Nobody says "no" to extra sleep. Nobody. You're welcome. Collin

Five Years

In 2001 I was a freshman in high school. As a homeschooler I had time, encouragement and resources to focus on my two childhood passions: my horses and what my parents were more passionate about, my music. After my first "gig" as a background pianist at the five-star resort at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and the concierge manager sent me a check for $250, music became my passion too and as a young high school student found my self playing regularly in churches and venues across our city often filling in for the church pianists who were on vacation or sick.

It was on one such Sunday morning in May that I was playing piano at a small Presbyterian Church on the outskirts of Colorado Springs that I saw her. The entire front of the church sanctuary was windows which faced the front range of the Rocky Mountains that let the sunshine flood the room with warm, bright, Colorado sunshine. She was hard to miss; slender, the brightest, blondest hair I had ever seen that reflected all the light that poured through the windows. She was wearing a white cardigan over a green sun dress. I thought she might be my age and from my vantage point at the piano I could see her sitting with what I guessed was her mom and sisters and I spent more time watching her than I did listening to the sermon and focusing on my job...playing the piano. (This is why you don't hire fifteen year-old piano players.)

Needless to say, I hoped for a chance to walk past her after church and maybe see if she'd smile at me which unfortunately didn't happen. Disappointed, I drove away from church with my family to a high school graduation reception with friends from the church and it was there that I saw her again. She sat quietly in a corner of the living room next to her sisters. Lunch had been served buffet style, then dessert, before I finally got up the nerve. As a home schooler I needed to take advantage of these opportunities which rarely came along and I wasn't going to miss this one.

I made my move by abruptly sitting down next to her and saying, "Hi my name is Collin."
"Hi." she said. That was it. Nothing more. She was either oblivious to my sheer terror, or was enjoying her perfected torture techniques and knew that the longer she waited, the more I would wallow and completely derail and she wanted a good show this time.
"...so what's your name?" I inquired. This was typical introduction etiquette, and she wasn't helping me out. I was beginning to question that this was a good idea.
"Jenna." Which was not followed with a, "and what's your name?" I was freaking out.
For the next half hour I sat there and bravely battled on, asking question after question which rendered simple, one or two word answers. I found out that she played violin, had two sisters, (which I already knew but couldn't think of a better question in that moment), had two cats, one dog and wanted a Mazda Miatta for her first car. Pretty good recon, I thought. I found out what I needed and concluded that she was perfect for me. (This is why it's a bad idea for 15 year-olds to date which we were definitely not allowed. Good job Mom and Dad).

I didn't see her until about a year later at the same friends annual fall barn dance. As we drove in from a distance I noticed her almost immediately. She was standing in a field of tall, dry grass and her bright blonde hair was reflecting the setting sun. That night I found myself conveniently close to her whenever the caller said, "grab your partner!" I danced with her all night and even though I got in trouble on the way home I even got her email address. It was so worth it.

Slowly but surely our family friends became the same family friends and I found myself playing more frequently at her church. Whether this was fate or initiative on my part I will always wonder, however God had a plan and I found myself falling more and more in love with this pretty girl. High school thankfully didn't last forever however we thought life would have been perfect if it never did. My parents highly encouraged me to take my music scholarship at Belmont University in Nashville, TN and my friends placed bets on how long we'd stay together once I moved away.

From August to November we wrote letters and got in trouble for wracking up high cell phone bills that made our parents question my devotion and investment to my studies. I made the deans list from then on to ensure we could continue our phone conversations. After returning home for Thanksgiving that first year we kissed for the first time.

I began to grow up in Nashville and my roots began to deepen. My high school sweet heart visited as often as she could, but as the years went by it became more obvious that we were both changing. I had started a band and life was different. My circle of friends was changing, my career was developing. I was traveling a lot, growing a ton. During our visits we still were able to adjust to being together, which sometimes took a few days. We saw long distance relationships end frequently which made us question ours. It was hard. My new friends were advising us to break up. They had no idea what they were talking about.

I sold my truck after my 21st birthday and with the cash I bought a ring. I'd waited for years to have a lump of cash big enough to afford a diamond and I set out to buy just that. I was determined to be taken seriously and make man decisions. I was tired of being told that we weren't going to last and that we weren't right for each other. Hadn't we proven that over the past six years already? I was convinced that if I loved hard enough, called often enough, wrote sweet enough love letters that nothing could separate us.

Like many things in my life I have to learn the best when I experience it, even when it's the hard way. Jenna and I began to fight more, and connect less. Even though I had a ring in the top drawer of my dresser I knew I couldn't ask her to marry me. We weren't doing well. We began to talk about ending years of investment and relationship. It really wasn't complicated, I was extremely selfish and wanted to push my agenda on God and it wasn't in God's timing. God was teaching me that life must happen in His timing. It's not about my timing. I began to see that even though my desire to fight for Jenna and provide for her and marry her were good, they weren't in God's timing and I wasn't loving her by listening to God first. I did one of the hardest things I've ever done...I took the ring back.

Giving up years of hopes and dreams is one of the hardest parts of life in my opinion but God was showing me that it has to be in His timing. Jenna was my best friend. We really loved each other, but God was teaching me how to love her and that life happens in His timing. During on of our visits together, this time in our home in the Colorado mountains, we sat on a rock outcropping overlooking Pikes Peak with the gold mine of Cripple Creek cresting the mountains way in the distance we prayed. We both gave our relationship to God. That was the first time we'd ever done that. In that moment we stopped trying so hard to push our agenda and force the pieces to work. I know this makes sense to you. We surrendered. We both said to each other that if we were never married than it would be okay. It was sad and we grieved.

Life returned to normal when I flew back to Nashville several days later. We didn't know what was next but we were okay with that. We were waiting for God to move us toward each other even though we didn't really know what that was supposed to look like. To be honest with you I'm still not entirely sure how it happened. It just did. God used our parents again, even though we were growing adults. My parents began to soften at the conversations about Jenna, they began to affirm us as a couple, her parents began to talk more about our future together and we hadn't initiated any of it. I'm not sure why God chose to work this way but He did. This time we were listening.

I spent a long time this time finding the perfect ring. I wasn't going to buy a ring that just anybody could buy, so I went to a jeweler in Manitou Springs, CO who designed custom jewelry and asked him for a ring that had vines engraved into the band. Our relationship had been a living example of John 15 asking the Lord to take the branches that weren't bearing fruit and I wanted the symbol of our marriage (our rings) to be a symbol of that lesson. I proposed to her on the same place that we had given our relationship to the Lord and she responded with, "YES, YES YES!! Of course yes!!" We both cried.

The battles weren't over. It took many months to agree on a wedding date that worked for the world, and we finally settled on February 9th. Tomorrow will be five years from the day that I got to say, "I do.  Those words were some of the most satisfactory and pleasing words I've ever spoken. Tomorrow I will say with joy and thankfulness and sobriety that God is faithful. What He starts He will complete. There is no way we can imagine what the process will be like. Sometimes if we knew what it entailed we would say no. We wouldn't go. Marriage has brought grownup decisions. Kids. Mortgages. Complications. Things that I had no idea would be hard. But.

Please don't read over that last word.

But. God is incredible. The payoff is incredible. Is marriage hard? Duh. Look at half of your friends and parents who aren't married anymore. Apart from God this wouldn't work. God taught me that He needed to give me Jenna and guess what? She's still His. I'm just the lucky guy that gets to do life with her. Who gets to stay up late at night rocking fussy babies and changing nasty diapers. I'm the guy that gets to rub her back and encourage her when she's exhausted and can't keep her eyes open. I'm the guy who gets to touch her gorgeous blonde hair and feel her arms wrap around my neck. I'm the guy, the only guy who gets to say "I love you." (I have many guns...) I'm the guy who will grow old with her. I'm the guy who will actively and tenderly stand up for her and lead her even when she doesn't want to be lead, I will love her when she feels unloveable. I'm the guy who gets to give her presents and flowers. I will do this to the best of my ability. I love everything about this woman. The vows that I said five years ago are more true today than they were that incredible day.

My wife deserves a better written blog post than this, but I want the world to know how I feel about this woman and what God has done in our lives.

I love you Jenna Christine.

A Little Merry Christmas Memory

My infamous picture box is stashed away somewhere in a bulging, freezing, catastrophic storage space in the freezing tundra that is northern Colorado. With it's absence I have no gorgeous picture from my photographer father's old 35mm Pentax to show you of a nostalgic old memory or visual to stretch some spiritual application from. No, the application and lessons of these past few weeks have been much more real-time and obvious.

I'm sorry for my silence over the past few months. In all honesty we've just been processing the reality of stepping through a door that God has opened which means closing one behind. In these seasons of transition I'm overly aware of the Biblical, realistic caricature of a sheep. That is me. I've never corralled a sheep, but I have chased a few cows and when they don't see exactly the opening they're supposed to head for, they don't stop, they timidly jump back and forth and clang and bash their horns on the corral bars and run into things. When moving cows I find myself not only annoyed, but embarrassed for them. Remembering that I am compared to sheep which are dumber than cows makes me embarrassed for me.

Two weeks prior to our scheduled departure date, Gabby came down with the flu/bug/sick/crap everyone in the USA is getting. Gabby's a passionate "all-in" kind of gal and her health is no different. When she catches something, she REALLY catches it. We're not talking a low fever for a few days, we're talking 103º for two weeks. Numerous doctor's visits and literally pages of us charting her med schedule, she was released from the Mercy Stoddard Hospital (that's what I named our house). Days later we didn't really pack up, we just grabbed our stuff and chucked it in some diaper boxes, wrapped it in plastic and threw it into a Uhaul truck. The big kind. Then we put my wife's car on the trailer of it and drove away.

Not that leaving with everything working out perfectly would have been any easier, but the past month has just been crazy. The past three years in Michiana have been nothing short of a huge blessing to us. We had some really tough seasons, but they were some of the best, growing times for us. As Jenna and I walked through our house one last time to make sure we had thrown everything in, we had to stop, lean against the kitchen island one more time holding hands and thank the Lord. When God meets you: in a season, a place, a time when you needed it most because you were at your lowest, it changes you. I needed to be changed when we left Nashville and I'm thankful that God chipped away at me, worked the clay soil of my heart so He could mold me on the Potter's wheel. We made life long friends. Friends I miss right now.

Well Colorado welcomed us as it does everybody else with promise of being colorful. Growing up we always joked that it was a million shades of brown. We didn't care. We were just glad to be home.

Jenna's parents are over-saturating our kids with much needed Grandparent love. There is no replacement for that. I still feel blinded when I walk outdoors and am confronted by this massive, orange ball of fire in the sky that penetrates my retinas even when I close my eyes. I hear they call it the sun. It makes the snow look pretty.

We had a good Christmas. My first "event" at Calvary was Christmas Eve (no pressure) and the band did great and I was even able to shoot and edit this Christmas video of some of the pretty footage I see on my commute between Colorado Springs and north Denver.

Christmas Day was a day of fun for us.

Palmer started crawling yesterday which has given him a big head and he's started pulling himself up on things and throwing his water from the high chair. They grow up so fast. Gabby started calling me by my first name.

Thanks for keeping up with the Stoddards.

Collin

Go West Young Man

This blog is particularly exciting for me to write today, we've been waiting anxiously to be able to share this. My faith is always challenged in the transition of a season when I desire to see the "writing on the wall" and I'm often envious of people who get that. I am shocked and thankful that God is evidently and unmistakably doing this in our lives right now.

We are moving to Colorado.

I will be the Director of Worship and Music at Calvary Bible's Erie campus in Erie, Colorado, just north of Denver. It has been a crazy and faith-deepening journey that has brought us and connected us to Calvary. We are packing and preparing for a cold winter move on December 18 and have already felt incredibly welcomed and reached out to by our new family at Calvary. We can't wait to begin a new season with a new spiritual family so close to our physical family and our roots. Colorado is our home and we can't wait to be close to a few grandparents. We can't be more thankful. I will be working at Calvary in a part time capacity to have the ability to tour as a solo artist, build my studio, teach students and continue recording my music.

We are thankful for the past two and a half years that God has had us at Grace in Indiana. We have met some incredible people and learned some invaluable lessons. Jenna and I are so thankful for the relationship and growth that we have experienced with these people, in our marriage, and our family. 

Thank you for rejoicing and celebrating with us.

Psalm 90:1 "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God." 

St. Joseph, MI

While spending hours of preparation loading up the car with gear and diapers for a concert with a family of four inspires excitement and adventure, it's not the easiest and most stress-free way to tour. As I recently found myself rearranging car seats and wedging strollers between my road cases in the back of our SUV I remembered traveling with all dudes in a tour bus with a massive trailer packed with merchandise, gear and often a massive sound system. While I miss playing with a band of fantastic musicians, I prefer the small SUV with my cute little family.

Even better are the dates close to home. Several weeks ago I spent an early afternoon playing Tetris at the back of our MDX. Poor Gabby had to share her seat with a piano. Every time I have to move a keyboard I ask myself why I didn't choose to play the violin or guitar?



Even though the rain made the load in slightly obnoxious, we found ourselves ready for a great night with good friends. What better way to spend a rainy evening than with a group of friends at a concert?



Other advantages of having a show close to home is the ability to invite a network of cool friends. Always thankful for my friend and creative counter part Kyle Pierpont. Having a good photographer in one's inner-circle is always a good idea.









A one man show is tough and not my preference by any means. Toby Mac is probably the best example of this philosophy of business and has been very successful at it. He's the first to admit that he's not the most talented guy on the bus and purposefully surrounds him self with people who are better than him to make his concerts what they are. Any one who's seen Toby and the Diverse City band would see that. A band compensates for a player's weaknesses and potential lack of preparation. When you're by yourself, there's nobody to hide your mistakes behind. You also never get a break. There isn't a guitar solo that allows a few seconds to step back and drink some water and catch your breath, or a trash can ending to to give a few minutes to think of your next joke. It's also tough to remain entertaining for 80 minutes. When I'm hiding behind a keyboard, it's tough to visually stimulate an audience. I try to come out from around the keyboard a few times a night, but I always feel the pull hurry back behind my shield.




A band will come, but this has been a tremendously rewarding and challenging way to travel and play concerts. God has been so gracious to us in this, we've helped facilitate over 60 children sponsored this year. Considering the size of my typical audiences, this is a tremendous blessing.
If you've come to my shows, thank you. If you're thinking of having me to one, pull the trigger. Do it. Do it now. I can't wait and look forward to seeing you soon. Christmas is around the corner and I can't wait to share some Christmas music with you.

Collin

Gabby in Colorado

I flew into Midway airport yesterday morning and a good friend picked me up from the airport to return me to my quiet home in southern Michigan. I realized it had been over two years since I boarded a plane last. As I stood in line clutching my driver's license and thinking through the contents of my bag, paranoid that I'd forgotten to leave behind any renegade bullets that may have sunk into the recesses of my backpack it dawned on me how I change and adapt to my surroundings. Once upon a time I racked up the frequent flier miles and had air port concourses and shuttle bus routes memorized. Not any more. Now I'm the guy shrieking when the little puffs of air fluff up my hair in the full body scanners. What's happening to me? Traveling is good for everybody. (Blanket statement I know...) I really believe that. I still maintain that change for the sake of change itself is very good for us humans who's brains are patterned to program muscle memory and become complacent in our routines. Traveling reminds me of lots of things: who I am now, where I've come from, where I'm going, that there is a big huge world out there that doesn't revolve around me, that there is a perspective other than mine that I need to acknowledge. This was the first big trip with a family of four. Not sure what I think of traveling with a small family the age of ours. The infant is fine. Gabby's the tough one. She's so engrained in her little patterns and routines that altering her lunch schedule and menu by one small cracker half an hour late throws off her entire day. Add that to the stress of being strapped into a car seat for 20 hours makes for a grumpy little kid. I can't say that I blame her, I was her age once too and remember hating my car seat. Thankfully I got bigger. Much bigger. When she adjusted to her new routine of no routine she became her happy, bossy high-energy self again. Between concerts we drove through some of my favorite parts of the Colorado mountains. These are the places that inspired the songs of "Songs from Brookside." I look forward to showing you the videos I took of my new family enjoying these incredibly beautiful places. I did grab some still images that I thought I thought were adorable.

 



 We spent several days at Jenna's parents house in Colorado Springs. My horse trailer has sat as a reminder of a past life, slowly rusting in their field. I finally sold it today. My Proverbs 31 wife acted the part of a barter-saavy Mike Wolf and negotiated the sale to a cowboy from Omaha. My tribute to my horse trailer will come soon. :) If you really follow my blog, the answer is yes, everything in my life holds significance. If it doesn't, I throw it away. I got these pics of our cute little someday-to-be-cowgirl
 peering through the slats in the side.





 Jenna and the kiddos stay in the home country for two weeks away from me to attend the wedding of one of Jenna's good friends. I'm going to be so productive I won't be able to miss them. That's the theory anyway. So far I'm failing.

Breckenridge

A much needed change in our routine brought our little family to Colorado for the next few weeks for some shows, a family reunion and hopefully some family time. My EP Fight for Me released last week and this is the first run of shows that I have it with me. We've experience a lot of attack leading up to and during the past few days we've been away. Traveling with a family presents a new set of challenges and Jenna and I are adjusting to this new reality. It's no longer just the two of us switching off driving and only stopping for gas until we're at our destination...it's a little more complicated. Our little Cracken (Gabby) had enough of her car seat at hour sixteen of a twenty-one hour drive. Turns out toddlers also need lots of sleep and we've realized just how valuable her home routine has been to keeping her rested! Due to either the altitude of where we are in Breckenridge, or a bug she picked up, she's been a sick little girl battling a fever and hopefully a doc visit this afternoon will reassure her folks' anxious hearts!

Last Saturday we loaded up about 4,000 diapers, babies, concert gear and finally ourselves and left for Chicago to see some great friends. Once our Nashville family, God has moved us all across the country and our paths intersected in Chicago. Jonathan is a creative arts director at Willow Creek and David is a Brentwood, TN cop. We've more than doubled in numbers...how is this happening?





We are thankful for First Federated Baptist in Des Moines for hosting us and allowing me to join them for worship on Sunday. I'm always for some reason surprised and comforted connecting with believers across the nation singing the same songs to the same God. Common bonds are pretty neat.

Our journey has led us to here where Jenna's immediate family is off enjoying the Rocky Mountains. At least we get this view from our deck where I'm awaiting my turn at rocking the little ill one.



I haven't seen this mountains since I recorded Songs from Brookside which was inspired by the places we will see this week. Come back to my website throughout the next few days and I'll give you some video stories behind the songs and tell a few stories about this beautiful place.

Wish you could see it.

I'm Still Kicking...

Hey friends. I hope you haven't missed me too much. The last time I wrote to you was in May. This has probably been one of the busiest seasons I've ever lived through but God has been so faithful and done so many things I have to share with you. The last image I left you with was of my two delightful Blue Spark microphones in front of my Yamaha piano. For two weeks I tucked myself away in Brookside and recorded a full length solo piano record called Songs from Brookside in the small hours of the night when my babies were sleeping. It's available for download on my website, I hope you check it out.




If I could title a book about the past few months it would be, "Starting a Solo Music Career in Thirty Days: The Wrong Way to Do it." As a pianist first and foremost I've always lacked the project that represents who I am that says exactly what I want in the most honest and raw way I know how. This is Songs from Brookside. I've had these songs in my head for years without the time or capability to record them and now that I have one of these (capability) it was time. Every creative self-help book (trust me, I've read many because I need so much help) explains the importance of setting deadlines for yourself to accomplish goals and I had a natural deadline set itself for me.

Three weeks before Father's Day an opportunity presented itself for me to easily step away from my duties at Grace and finally having a Sunday morning off, I unashamedly invited myself to my good friend Jeff Castello's church, Crossroads Community in Goshen, IN. Jeff has always been a tremendous advocate since our introduction five or six years ago when I traveled in 33Miles and often stopped at Crossroads. Pretty awesome church. I've always wanted to have a CD release concert there but never had a CD to release...minor problem. With the time and excuse to promote a concert and lead worship with them on a Sunday morning I put the pieces together and Songs from Brookside was born.




Jeff connected me with LeSea broadcasting and simultaneously set up an interview at Studio B on the Harvest Show, a live Christian morning talk show. An awesome opportunity to share my music and share my heart for this new season of music ministry as a solo artist...something I never thought I would ever hear myself say. Check out clips from my time on the Media>Videos section of my website.




Well, a solo piano record is great, but the majority of my concert consists of me telling stories and singing songs about my family and what God is doing in my life. I'm so glad I finally finished Songs from Brookside, but with several shows lining up through the end of summer and into the fall I needed to track my vocal record and the day after my CD release concert I started tracking Fight For Me, my five song EP which I have been more proud to collaborate on then any other record I've ever done. This is not the $80,000 recording budget of my 33Miles records and on my shoe string budget I wasn't sure if I'd able to make something work and with the help of some awesome friends sharing .wav files over DropBox, tracking is finally done. I got the first mix back last Wednesday as I was driving to church and listened to it from my iPhone in my truck I laughed hysterically as I swerved back and forth and clapped my hands!

I called in a huge favor with Adam Silverman who I played with for years in 33Miles who now tours with Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina and he knocked it out of the park. My good friend Cal Joslin who plays bass for SideWalk Prophets tracked acoustics and bass, and Tyler Ewing played cello. Jason Hall, a friend from college is mixing and mastering and he is a magician. I am so honored that these guys believed in my project and offered to lend their incredibly amazing creative ability to make this what it is. I can't wait for you to hear this. These guys made me sound so much better than I do on my own and I'm so glad to have something that I don't cringe at when I hand people!

I've partnered with Jeff Castello more officially and he has been lining up shows through the fall, I seriously can't believe it. I'll debut Fight For Me on a run of shows to Colorado starting August 5 and I'm anxious to hold it in my hand and make people buy it. I hope it communicates how faithful God has been to me and how much He is teaching me utter dependence on Him.

Another major blessing in this new seasons has been our home base at Grace. Working with a pastor and boss like Jay who understands my creativity and supports my music ministry is a tremendous blessing. Pulling double duty keeping my worship arts, tech teams and now taking over more staff administration duties has been challenging and Jenna has been such a tremendous support giving me pep talks, talking me off many ledges, and held down the fort with a two year old and a three month old. Can you believe that? I'll post pics of my beautiful family soon because I have so many stories that crack us up daily with these little people that I know you'll get a kick out of, too. Here Gabby and Palmer are helping me edit vocals.



Alright. Best update I can bang out on keyboard in a few minutes. Can't wait for you to hear Fight For Me, I'd love to come and share it with you LIVE at your church!!

Collin

Songs from Brookside

My view from the past few days.




Songs from Brookside is a collection of solo piano songs recorded in my studio which overlooks a bend in Christian Creek which by Colorado standards is more like a river. I've heard there are trout in it, but fishing it is not the purpose it has in our lives right now as our time is filled with raising a family and developing a worship arts community. These songs are my way of processing our place in time today, and I look forward to sharing them with you.

I'll keep you posted when the record is done, but I'm shooting for the end of summer!

Alright, I Admit It.

That's right, I'm coming clean. The Swedish store which is the envy of all our small spaces has found a special place in my church stage. It always has. I'm not sure if it's the cute pictures that explain how to screw the thousands of pieces together, or the fact that the products last almost as long as my attention span. I just love Ikea. The beauty is almost exclusively in the low price of everything. When I walk in to the blue and yellow utopia I practically stifle shouts of, "YES, I'll take five of everything!!"

Last week I think I did buy five of every lantern to create our new stage set. This will carry us through the summer with a general theme of light and bright summer colors. Honestly, this stage rides a little too close for comfort to my personal guidelines of keeping it neutral and non-distracting. Just like our approach to worship styles, performance, and music selection my goal is to inspire and add to our worship experience while minimizing the attention on the band. With pops of bright red, chrome and a drum riser this is further then I will go in the future! Thankfully the lamps warm up the space and make it more bright and cheery than distracting.

My staging budget is only $100 per month, so changing every quarter allows me $400 per set and we've never exceeded it thanks to Ikea and a resourceful team.

















It's been an uphill road over the past two years building the worship arts team at Grace. Seeing more and more talented artists come forward and offer their gifts and time to engage our church in visual worship with each big project makes the long weeks so worth it. After finally finishing this involved set of engineering how to hang these panels from other panels, one of our associate pastors texted me Saturday night at 10pm. He asked me if the panels on one side were supposed to be on the floor of the stage. Answer: no. Thankfully my sister Linsi was in town visiting and after a long night of re-engineering how to fasten our panels we made them safe for Sunday.

There are two 1/16" inch cables running through pulleys fastened to angle iron on the top of the the white panels. This allows us to hang props more efficiently. Our new challenge was fastening the styrofoam lantern panels to the cable which is done by glueing two furring strips to the back of the styrofoam and running the cable through eye screws screwed into the furring strips. We crimped lead fishing weights to the cable to stop the panels from sliding down, but they didn't hold. After it fell we screwed the cable to the furring strip which seemed to do the trick.

My mockup ended up being pretty close!

Open for Business

One of the most important components for my studio finally arrived last week. Gabby was almost excited as I was and graciously "helped" me by standing on the box marked "fragile". Good thing she only weighs 26 lbs.





She was a huge help with my least favorite part: picking up all of the little peanuts. Why do they even make those? Answer: to entertain my two year-old. This killed a good thirty minutes of our morning while Mom and Palmer slept.



I don't think I'm alone in my need for an inspiring space to create. That becomes a challenge when an increase in kids creates a decrease in space in a rental home. Nevertheless I sunk my teeth into one of our spare rooms. Come on, I'll give you a tour.



This makeover cost me $15. This was leftover paint from work that was the wrong tint anyway, so I saved it from the trash. My boss roasts coffee and last time we went to the green coffee place I rummaged through the coffee sacks and picked out the ones with the prettiest pictures to create these isolation panels. I upholstered them to some 1/4" plywood over leftover batting that I found laying around. The curtains were on sale at Target which was the only real expense. Take that HGTV.





Also I can take a nap when I get tired from writing songs and stuff.

Some of my gear:

15" MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5 with 4 GB ram
Presonus Firestudio 10x10 Firewire PreAmp and Audio interface
Logic Pro
Mackie HR824 Monitors
Yamaha S90ES Keyboard
Yamaha MX100B Acoustic Piano (Predecessor to the U1 with a Disklavier module)
Blue Spark Cardioid Condensor Mic with the Blue Pop (I still need its' pair for stero recording)
Larrivee OM3 acoustic

I'm working on some fun projects which I'll be sharing with you soon!