FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Everyone!

It’s 8:30 AM EST, I’m sippin’ on some coffee up here in North Georgia …. Gainesville, GA to be exact, at my in-laws. This weekend celebrates my father-in-law’s 80th birthday, and he’s in great shape. We piled in the car on Wednesday evening and went as far as McRae, GA (to my parents), spent the night, and came on up here yesterday. As you may have seen on yesterday’s post, it was Andrew’s 1st Birthday as well.

Church Life:
Since we won’t be back until late Sunday night, this was one of the Sundays that I’m unable to personally lead worship at church.  This week the worship leader at SSCC will be Elizabeth Veal.  She’s a great worship leader, pianist, and friend.  I knew Elizabeth back when I was in school at GSU, and she and her sister were both very gifted singers, pianists, and were always full with the heart of worship. I think she’s been underutilized at SSCC as she’s just been sitting back playing a keyboard – one of my first steps as the new Worship Director was to plug her in as someone who will lead the services.  So, she’s now on the list of worship leaders that I’m privileged to work with at the church.  She picked a great setlist, had a good rehearsal with the band, and she’ll do a great job leading the people in worship this Sunday. I’ll probably attend Jentezen Franklin’s church, Free Chapel up here in G’Ville Sunday morning myself.  One of my primary responsibilities at SSCC is to develop a “culture of worship” with multiple leaders.  That’s awesome for a number of reasons, and it also comes in handy when I have to be out of town.  The best aspect of that is seeing multiple leaders using their gifts, blessing the Body, and bringing a diversity of leadership, style, music, and technique that brings a well-rounded approach to ministry.

Music:

With the release of the newly designed IndieHeaven.Com site, one feature in particular rocks more than any other. It’s the ability to PLAY ALL MY MUSIC (or any other artists) with one play button. The first album in the playlist is all my newer instrumental works, so it’s nice if you open my artist page, click the play button, then, either minimize it, or open a new browser window or tab and go on about your work. I hope you’ll consider listening to my music while you work! Also, while you’re there, help get “You, You Are God” back in the top of the charts on “Fan Faves”. Just click the “Fan Faves” link, and then vote for “You, You Are God” … you can do this daily.

If you play my music while you work, pray, meditate, etc … you can leave it on and it counts towards my daily “plays” reflected on the homepage. Cool, eh?

Online:
A bunch of us have been joining together to prelaunch “The Worship Community” forums. It’s been exciting, and already people are benefiting from the discussions. The “Sticky” Thread right now is called “Why Men Hate Going to Church Comment” .. it’s a discussion about today’s worship music, and whether or not our lyrics have gotten too “sappy” and “lovey” for men to relate. What are your thoughts?

My web hosting business has been in rough times the last few weeks. One particular server was upgraded to newer versions of the software, and ever since, it keeps shutting down. I’ve hired the best in the biz, and for nearly 3 weeks, this occurs, randomly, without warning, and without triggering our monitoring alarms. The admin team I have monitoring this server is top notch and has yet to find the cause. As a result, I’ve got some angry, frustrated customers. I’d be one of them if I were the customer. I’m at my wits end. It looks like we successfully got a “band-aid” script on it last night to apply a quick fix when it happens, but nobody can find the root cause. As a result, it looks like we’ll be retiring that server and buying a new one … the new one costs 2-1/2 times more as this one .. but is probably 10x more powerful. I wasn’t looking forward to a big spend, but if I don’t do something, my customers will flock to other providers … “relationships” only go so far in “business” when the service is failing. Pray for me to have wisdom, and pray that my Admin team can find the cure, or that the migration to the new server goes smoothly (oxymoron) if that has to happen.

Fitness Update:
Today is the start of my 12th day on the “new lifestyle/diet”. As of my last moment on the scales on Wednesday, I’d lost between 10-11 pounds. All along, I’ve said I wanted to work hard on this, thus, keeping myself accountable to you, my readers. This weekend is tough … I’m traveling, we’re stopping at fast food joints in the car (hard to eat a salad from Wendy’s and drive at the same time). Plus, Joy’s mom (“Nanna”, our kids call her) is a great cook and always has yummy things. Nobody else is on a diet around here, so I was resigned to eat “Peanut Butter” cereal (Resse Cups, which I love!) and had mashed potatos and bisquits last night. NOT ON THE EATING PLAN HERE, obviously. I think the key is “balance” – enjoy life, respect what is served and be grateful for it, enjoy it, but IN MODERATION. Then, when we get home, I”ll have to get serious again, when I have more control over what’s in the fridge and what’s served. To be honest, THE BREAK IS NICE!

Well, that’s enough journaling for now. Need to shower, and I have my kids and two nieces who seem to think they can “take me down” on the trampolene. We’ll see about that.

God bless,
Fred

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