FredMcKinnon.Com

• I’m in a sleepy stupor – what a hard, crashing nap. Great services today @sscc, watching AZ manhandle PH on NFLFootball #
• The very first link on Sunday Setlists blog carnival already deleted. Hilarious how after 26 wks, people can’t follow the rules. #
• I’m amazed- AMAZED at how many people don’t understand #
• I’m amazed at how many people don’t understand “link to your blog entry, NOT your blog’s homepage”. Delete. Delete. Delete. #
• whatever I said about AZ “manhandling” PHI earlier? Never mind. #
• We got a game going on here folks. Headed to my brother-in-laws on SSI for the rest. #
• Today was a great day … but it’s time to call it a night. See you Monday #
• Wife woke me up at 5:00 AM ’cause I was snoring so loud. Oh well, can’t get back to sleep, may as well get an early start on my day! #
• Time to go meet the in-laws at MCD’s for a quick b’fast send off – they are going back to N. Georgia. #
• Lots of services to plan this week – sorting teams, musicians, vocalists for SSCC and two special events #
• I lost $15 cash yesterday – that flat out stinks. #
• Another great reason for Twitter. The $15 I lost – was found, thank you Twitter. @tpaulding found it on the floor, put in offering box! #
• Hey – anyone know where Francis Chan/Cornerstone stand doctrinally on Charistmatic/Sign spiritual gifts? Just curious – @reply me. #
• Time for eval/planning mtg. #
• Now over 40 people have posted blogs about their worship experience as part of SundaySetlists? Join the fun: http://is.gd/gtVH #
• Off to pickup kids who are out of school for MLK, then play some raquetball at SSH&F. L8r. #
• Daddy night w kids. Grilled chicken, yellow rice, and mixed veggies. #
• Church Relevance’s “Top 60 Blogs” – check’em out at http://is.gd/gs1M #
• I’m so excited – just got something I’ve wanted since college – a hammer dulcimer w/ the stand, tuning fork, and all the works. #
• My goal for hammered dulcimer? To have Rich Mullins “Creed” mastered by Easter Services. I have a few months. #
• Retweeting @theworshipcomm: Good morning everyone, Day 2 of Week 2 of PurePraise study is now online for discussion at: http://is.gd/gzpF #
• Worship Leaders – shut up and sing? Your comments would be appreciated: http://www.fredmckinnon.com #
• So, I guess you’re supposed to twitter about the inauguration? I think Obama did a great job, and he has my prayers. God bless America. #
• Gotta head home so Joy can teach her cycle/spinning class at gym. Raquetball for me at 5:00 PM. Bring it. #
• Home from gym, 4 games of raquetball – icepack on my back now. Ouch. #
• For those who haven’t joined the conversation, checkout the “Worship Leader, Shut Up and Sing” post at http://www.fredmckinnon.com #
• Brrr – 27 degrees outside. My studio/office was 50 degrees this AM. I’m having my pryaer time downstairs by the fire! #
• My new avatar – special to me, the guy in the background is a friend and one of our vocalists, currently in aggresive chemo. Pray for him. #
• Meeting w/ Senior Pastor re: this weekend’s prayer/worship conference #
• Back from a trip to take our van to the body shop – Rebekah broke off the handle to the door! #
• I just gotta say I think it was cool that Andy Stanley got to pray today, in whatever gathering that was, in DC. #
• Church Staff Tweets – what association (if any) is your church affiliated with (ie. Willow Creek, NorthPoint, Acts 29, ARC, Sov Grace, etc) #
• TOTALLY digging “I Have Found” by Kim Walker – that will be our walk-in Friday Night for Prayer/Conf, led by Kim Dixon #
• Confirming hotel reservatinos and flight information I booked in Nov for re:create. It’s all good #
• Apple Reports Record $1.61 Billion Profit for Q1 2009 – that’s why not having debt is a GOOD THING. Way to go, Apple. #
• Off to get Larry’s Subs for worship team, PurePraise study at 6:00, then rehersal from 7:00 +. #
• Uh oh, thanks to my brother, I’ve discovered Poker Palace on FaceBook, and Hold’em it is. #
• OK – enough tv-watching, card-playing, facebook-chatting, fun. It’s time to go to sleep. G’nite – see you all tomorrow. #
• Loving the new PlanningCenterOnline “public access” feature – wanna see this Sunday’s plan for @SSCC? http://is.gd/gX2v #
• HappyBirthday Joy – my wife is 39 today. And she’s AMAZING. #
• FreePlay Friday – Happy Birthday Joy http://tinyurl.com/a9qa4t #
• FreePlay Friday – Happy Birthday to my wife Joy, leave her birthday wishes here! http://tinyurl.com/a9qa4t from: @fmckinnon #
• FreePlay Friday – Happy Birthday Joy http://tinyurl.com/a9qa4t from: @fmckinnon #
• I wish that @intensedebate could figure out why my comments are NOT syncing back to WP. If I deactivate ID, most of my comments disappear #
• Headed to Brunswick for Ruby Tuesdays salad and hopefully, white chicken chili. Joy’s B’Day lunch. Woo hoo. #
• Rehearsal time for tonight’s Prayer/Worship Conference w/ Tom Tanner – 7:00 PM @sscc #
• Back at @sscc to load ProPresenter and rehearse for 9 am prayer/worship conf with Tom Tanner #

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Hey Everybody,

Starting out this New Year in 2009, I thought I’d try a new feature out on the blog here.  It’s called “Intense Debate“.   Part of what makes blogging so rewarding is being a part of the interaction through you, the readers.  That’s what makes the comment section come alive. One of the easiest ways to jump off in the New Year is to do what we call a “roll call” here in blogworld … if you’re reading (via RSS or here on the site), you can leave a quick comment with your name and location.  Please – even if you usually don’t comment – let us here from you!

Back to IntenseDebate:
There’s a whole pile of features with IntenseDebate, but it essentially exists to “enhance and encouarge converations on your blog or website”.  Here’s a quick video recap of some of the features:

IntenseDebate provides many new features meant to inspire discussion and easily follow the conversation.

In order to better organize the discussion, we’ve implemented comment threading which allows users to directly reply to one another.

Users also have an identity that spans across all blogs powered by IntenseDebate. Along with this is a reputation value, based on the quantity and quality of the comments users make, meant to give an overview of a user’s commenting history. Quality is determined by the users through comment voting, which also serves to move the best comments to the top.

With all of our comment systems being interconnected, we make it easy to track users and their activities across all blogs using our system by providing email and rss notifications.

In short, IntenseDebate has completely transformed the commenting experience.

IntenseDebate. Comments Rediscovered.

Now, you can always comment here without signing up for IntenseDebate, but to take full advantage of the features (not just here, but on a growing list of popular sites as well), consider registering – it’s FREE.  Also, those who are registered will quality to show up in the sidebar under the “Who’s Talking” heading …

So, let the conversations begin!  Signup for IntenseDebate (you can just leave a comment below and checkoff the box that you wish to signup!) and come back and leave your first official “comment“.

HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!

Friday – Jan 2.  I’m not ‘officially’ back at work – though I’m taking today to sort of get back to work in my home office and get some things taken care of.  There are currently 305 messages in my inbox – yikes.  I haven’t done my business finances in a couple of weeks – yikes.  I have a bunch of new cases for the new “Aluminum Unibody Enclosure” Macs to add to my e-biz stores – yikes.

That being said – I’ll keep this FreePlay Friday quick with some “bullets”:

• First – prayers for my good friend, one of SSCC’s main drummers, and a faithful “FreePlay Friday” reader and commenter, R.V. Cate.  His mother passed away unexpectedly Sunday, Dec 21.  R.V. still came and played the drums for our Christmas Eve service.  R.V. – we love you, pray for continued peace and comfort, and look forward to drumming with you at practice in the morning.  You and your family are loved and have a special place in our hearts.
• Second – prayers for my good friend, Patrick Eades.  Patrick is the Director of our local CareNet, which is a massive ministry that extends into multiple counties and has a huge impact in our region.  God has blessed Patrick and promoted him into a great position of influence in the pro-life community.  He sent this prayer request today in his “e-care” newsletter:“… While I have you, I want to ask for your prayer as I am preparing for a six day training and consultation for Pregnancy Service Center in Salina, Kansas. I thought I asked weeks ago, but after reviewing previous e-cares I see that I neglected to ask for prayer on this crucial training. I leave very early Monday morning and will return the following Sunday.  This is a strategic location in that it is very close to Wichita where Doctor George Tiller performs hundreds of late term abortions each year and proclaims having provided over sixty thousand abortions since 1973 (http://www.drtiller.com/). Tiller is also infamous in that he has installed a crematorium in his abortion clinic to dispose of the dead babies (http://www.dr-tiller.com/). As a result I consider this a key area in our nation and thus a key need for our prayer. This center’s leadership asked for me specifically as a Care Net Consultant, so I am honored, but humbly seek your prayer. I am grateful for your prayer as fly into Wichita on Monday to prepare for training in Salina for the week.”
  
  (speaking of CareNet, I realized that I never mailed CD/DVD to those who donated to CareNet a while back when I did a promotion – if that was you, PLEASE let me know – I spoke with Patrick and he’s going to attempt to get the names to me)
• Free Music – Michael Cowan, a good friend from college (fellow Theory/Comp Major!) has a great band in Athens, GA called “Scarlet Snow”.  They kicked off the New Year by allowing their new album, “The Needle EP”, to be downloaded for FREE.  Don’t waste a moment – go to “downloadtheneedle.com” and get your FREE ALBUM – no strings attached.  While you are there, if you are into smooth jazz, also pickup Drew Davidsen’s “Mission Drew” track with code “smoothjazz”. Drew is a fellow “IndieHeaven.Com” artist – we met a few years ago, and he’s an incredible jazz musician.
• Free Graphics – Russ Hutto is offering a free “wallpaper” graphic each month – this month is a way-cool one of Psalm 57:10 that you can use as your desktop background on your computer.  Check it out here.
• Locals?  This Sunday is the first Sunday of the month, and that means “Fam  Jam” at SSCC – if you have kids in the 1st-5th grade range and you live nearby – come checkout this awesome service where “kids bring their parents to church” this Sunday at 10:00 AM in the Kid’s Clubhouse Theater.

In closing … I’d like to show you how I disposed of my Christmas Tree:

And that’s with NO gasoline … man, those things go up quick.  I said “I wonder if this thing will burn since it’s still so green” … well, I almost paniced … that fire had to be at least 25 feet high and started hitting the trees above it.  Too bad it only lasted about 2 minutes.  I was always a pryo-maniac.

How did you dispose of YOUR Christmas Tree?  Post your response, and any other random “FreePlay Friday” information below!

Happy New Years Eve

It seems like the thing to do (from what I’m seeing in my blogroll) is share stats today.  So here we go, the stats for FredMcKinnon.Com, just in case you’re interested.

But before I do stats, I’d like to encourage your reply to my “Questions for 2009″ post yesterday.  (click to open it in a new window)

Top Refererers

1.  google.com
2.  Twitter
3.  Facebook (no doubt, as a result of Twitter’s updating my status)
4.  TheWorshipCommunity.Com
5.  (a site that I found out had some bad stuff on it, so I’m not linking there anymore, thanks for the heads up, Chris (what in the world?)
6.  SSCommunityChurch.Com
7.  images.google.com (I guess people love my pics)
8.  webmail.att.net (I guess people actually read my emails)
9.  stumbleupon.com
10.  ragamuffinsoul.com (thanks Carlos)
11.  chrisfromcanada.com (thanks, Chris)
12.  mikeymo1741.blogspot.com (thanks, Mike)
13.  billchia.com (thanks, Billy, what a year, right?)
14.  burnsidewriterscollective.com (thanks Jamie)
15.  rmckinno1.wordpress.com (my brother, Robert!)

Top Posts:

#1 – Palm Treo versus Blackberry (sad, that has NOTHING to do with worship!)
#2 – Mike Guglielmucci Exposed
#3 – The O Holy Night Saga Category
#4 – How He Loves Us
#5 – About Me

Top Search Terms: (redundant keywords and phrases skipped)

#1 – fred mckinnon (duh)
#2 – mike guglielmucci
#3 – palm treo versus blackberry
#4 – how he loves us lyrics
#5 – tyranny of the urgent
#6 – bad o holy night
#7 – gators wear jean shorts (hahahahahahah)
#8 – mandisa god speaking
#9 – steven curtis chapman’s family
#10 – manual worship leader

That’s out of over 60 keywords, most of which have to do with the top 4 search terms.  “bad singer fred mckinnon o holy night” is probably the craziest.  In my search for weird terms in the list, I didn’t find those great ones like “wet my pants” that Mandy has … so I suppose “redneck naked” is the most controversial search term I could find in my Google Analytics at #159.

Well, I suppose I should blog more about controversial topics and head-to-head gadget reviews if I really want more traffic, right?  Nope … it ain’t about the traffic.  It’s about downloading, and hopefully, encouraging someone.

With that said, here’s a reminder to go back and answer these “Questions for 2009“.

Hey Everybody,

So it’s almost New Years … tomorrow will be New Year’s Eve … and in 48 hours, we’ll be celebrating the New Year … 2009.  I’ll be enjoying my family, and hoping the DAWGS can pull out a victory.

I’ve been pondering and thinking about next year – how God would use me, how I’ll invest my time and energy.  Over the years, I’ve invested myself into way more activities than I could ever do great.

One thing is certain – I’m excited about continuing to pour myself into the ministry of my family and my local church position at SSCC.  I believe God will continue showing up and showing Himself strong at our church in 2009, and I pray that I’ll become a better, more sensitive, and more anointed leader for that incredible ministry.

What about blogging?  Has it run its course for me?  I have to confess, I’ve tried to keep the discipline of posting routinely here, but it was increasingly more difficult towards the end of the year.  Another key component to blogging is being sure I keep up with YOU – with your blogs, your lives, and what YOU have to say.  I have gone weeks without having the time to visit the Google Reader, so if you’ve missed me on your blog, I apologize.  Then again, I’ve missed so many of YOU as well.  (and the reality is, if I’ve missed you, you probably won’t be here to read this!)

That being said, I’m praying for a God-given vision and clear strategy for how I should use this space in 2009.  A huge part of my doing this is for my own discipline – to journal, to have something to reflect upon, to have an outlet for me to express myself to clear my mind.  But connecting with you, networking, and hopefully – encouraging you in worship, family, and leadership is also a major objective.

To do that properly, I need to ask you … the faithful readers … what would you like to see in 2009?  How would YOU like to see this space used?  If you continue to subscribe (and thanks to the hundreds who do!), how can I be an encouragement to you?

Sunday Setlists:  this has been a huge success, and each week, I read in the comments about how people love it, and have learned so much by observing what other churches are doing.  I say we keep this for a while.

FreePlay Friday:  this has been my random outlet.  Not the most-visited day, by any means – but a chance for me to break off any specific topic and just be “me”.

New ideas?
I’ve considered doing “Tech Tuesday” – and devoting Tuesdays to postings that are more tech-specific – ie. loops, sound, recording, etc.

What do YOU think?  What about the old podcasts I used to do … I still get asked frequently “why don’t you ever release new podcasts”, etc.

Eager to hear from YOU.

For the Kingdom,
Fred