Camp Week 1

Chasen, David and I had a great start to the summer in North Carolina. We are working with a giant staff of creative and faith-filled leaders and it’s been fun to pretend we’re a part of their team this week. The camp pastor was RYAN FONTENOT and we really loved hanging out with this guy. A powerful communicator.

I will be here at Ridgecrest a total of 5 weeks over the summer so I’ve gotten to know the local coffee shop, The Dripolator quite well. Organic, fair-trade, and every cup is a work of art. A great place to listen, reflect, refresh.

We actually received copies of the new record this week. It’s fun to actually have it in my hand. It has showed up early on iTunes as well. CLICK HERE to open iTunes and find the record. No big New Release fanfare but if you dig the new record, leave a comment to let others know what songs they should buy. We’ll have copies of the record on the road with us all summer and a proper release will come later. *NOTE* If you buy a physical copy of the new record you actually get 2 records and some other bonus features too. Inside the packaging is a promo code to download the worship record “Make It Loud” from my site as well as other random bonus features (for example a weird remix is posting before the end of July).

Folks were asking this week for some of the songs we’re using in worship and so I put together an iMix in iTunes with most of them. Some of the songs (ie “Open hands”) are too new to be on there but most are HERE: James Tealy’s Worship iMix 09
. We’ll keep live streaming worship whenever and wherever we can so check back here often to join us over the summer.

See ya along the road,
James

New Tunes

I just added some new songs to THE MYSPACE PAGE. This record is WAY more pop than I’ve done in the past. I’m extremely proud of it but nervous too. I kept it cheap and did most the production, engineering and mixing myself. That leaves me feeling a bit self-conscious about “The Hardest Step to Land.” There’s no one to blame but me! The lyrics on this record are really important to me and I’m stoked to share them with you.

“Known” is a challenge to the way we posture and pretend. It’s a call to shine some light on “all the hurt and shame you carry, all the tears and pain you’ve buried, every broken dream and every doubt.”

“Hands” is a response to some quotes that stunned me. Oswald J Smith said “We talk of the Second Coming; half the world hasn’t heard of the first.” Currently more than 56% of the world’s population has little or no access to the story of Jesus. Crazy! Jim Elliot said “He is no fool who gives up what he can not keep to gain that which he can not lose.” Love is the language the whole world speaks!

“Teach Me How to Pray” is one of my favorites on the new record. As a professional wordsmith, I am so often left wordless when I pray. I think I’m learning how to listen.

“To The Nations” is a rich worship tune I’ve been using for the last few years. My friends, the Espy brothers gave birth to this simple gem a few years back and it remains my anthem. “Send us to the nations, to the broken. Lead us to surrender. We will go.”

So I may rotate out the songs as I get a clearer sense of what you want to hear but I at least have started with a few of my favorites. I’m still aiming to have product at shows by June 2nd. That seems less and less likely with each passing day but I’m still trying! HERE’S THE LINK AGAIN.Enjoy the new tunes and spread the word.

HANDS Video Shoot

Monday night was a long exhausting night and some of the most fun I’ve ever had. Some friends with cinematographic skillz decided we should shoot a video for one of the songs on the new record. The generous folks at THE STANDARD let us use one of their sweet old buildings to rock star up a bit. So David, Jacob, Toby and I strapped on some rawkstah clothes and played through the song 20 times while videographers Sarin and Andy found the right angles, the right balance of shadow and light.

I’m sure it will be a while before the video shows up on a youtube page near you, but in the meantime I thought you guys might get a kick out seeing some pix from the shoot. I wrote the song this past year with Aaron Blanton and Nate Sousa. It’s a call to get off our lazy butts and get to work practicing resurrection around us. “We are the hands, we are the feet, we are the face of love for the least of these.” It’s Easter, hope you are finding some meaningful way to remember God’s gift of bringing life out of death. I, of course, am all for bunnies and peeps but there must be something more.

4 stops 3 airlines 1 sore neck

I just arrived a few hours ago in Skopje, Macedonia. I’ve been given some unique opportunities this year and this is one of the coolest. I will spend the week with a group of students serving among the Romani People in this country. This will be students working with students and I will lead worship in the evenings. I am trying to stay awake at least a few more hours so I may head downstairs to a cafe to watch another Euro 2008 game. Love from the Balkans.

GMA Week

It’s Gospel Music Week in Nashville; a strange and surreal time where God’s glory crashes into the RawkStah Lifestyle. The result is a mess. It’s all cool hair, crosses, and cleavage. Guys in make up and capri pants. Girls with zebra hair flashing as much sex as Spirit. I don’t really know who I am in this environment. I was just on the street talking to Julie and Libby, friends from a radio station in New Orleans. In the middle of our conversation I was “good-gamed” by a friend from the band Addison Road. I laughed, waved, made some goofy comment and then continued the conversation with the Lifesongs crew. Then Mark Hall, the lead singer for Casting Crowns walked passed us. He made eye contact with me and I instinctively said, “Hey Mark.” He nodded and just kept moving. Mark looked just as familiar to me as Julie, Libby, and the guys from Addison Road. The difference is, Mark has no idea who I am. We’ve never met. Never shared youth pastor stories over a cup of coffee or written songs together for their new record or mine. He is familiar to me NOT because we have ever shared a conversation but because I have heard his songs, had conversations ABOUT him, seen him perform, seen his face four stories high on a video screen. I think I know him because of some vague sense of familiarity but the test of our connection is in whether or not he knows me. Is the “knowing” mutual?

Jesus challenged our sense of knowing with these words: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but [only] the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you!” Matthew 7:21-23 (HCSB)

This week it seems inevitable that we will all stay right at the surface with each other. I am trying to take interviews to some deeper place. I am trying to express genuine interest in the people interviewing me, not as a way of selling records, but because I am trying desperately to keep my eyes above this rock star mess. Flat-iron less. Love more! I am trying to express care for people, to enter their world. I am trying to find some security and self-worth, some sense of my enoughness outside of this Christian media machine. I am learning to find my legitimacy in knowing Jesus and more importantly in being known by Him. To love and be loved. To know and be known. To walk in the ways of Jesus with these brief moments I am given.

Listening

It’s only January and I’m already exhausted. How does that happen? I really love being on the road. Mainly because of all the cool people I get to meet along the way. I get to experience some rare gifts as well. Last weekend I was sitting on a pier at 1 AM in Key Largo, FL listening to some aquatic mammals swimming around just out of site. Schools of fish were going crazy, jumping all around out of the water to my right and then my left. I could hear 3 or more of the giant creatures breeching the surface and breathing through their blow holes just out of sight. They could have been dolphin or porpoise or manatee I suppose. Maybe someone smarter than me can venture a guess. They had come by earlier in the evening. Their splashing about was loud enough that I heard them from the living room of the home where I was staying and I had to go out and investigate. They were moving south from the everglades very slowly. They were swimming straight toward the setting moon. It’s thin crescent, like a cartoon smile stained the color of weak tea, dipped into the water to my left out in front of them at about 10:30. An hour later they were back and moving north now. I suppose they were moving up and down the shore line in an all you can eat seafood buffet.

What amazing sounds: their slow, labored movements, the echo of their breathing in the quiet of the night, the occasional splash of quick movement, a flashing tail on the surface of the bay. They were always just out of sight, just beyond the reach of my flashlight. I stayed out on the pier much longer than I should have. I was transfixed by the hope that they would come in a little closer, by the sound of a creature so large, so mysterious to me.

I suppose these days are like that for me. There is a stirring in me that something large is just out of my reach, just beyond the spread of my flashlight. How long should I wait in the hope of catching a glimpse of it? I never know. But there is so much joy in the waiting, so much mystery, such a rich hope that I can not help but turn my ear to the silence a little while longer.

“I know there is a sacred space between the singer and the song
I come alive inside that place. Catch a glimpse of it and just as quick it’s gone.”

Listening.

A Christmas Gift and a Kickline for Jesus

My wife and I went to see the Rockettes Christmas show last night. Shera dreamed of being a dancer when she was a little girl. It was fun to watch her eyes twinkle as she dreamt about being on that stage, toes pointed, arms akimbo, sparkly dress swirling behind her. The performance ended with a live nativity scene and snippets from Handel’s Messiah. The dancers were dressed as the entourage of the wisemen bearing gifts. As they marched up the aisles toward the manger scene I could picture them gathering together across the front of the stage to do a kick-line for the baby Jesus. Once the image surfaced in my mind I couldn’t stop laughing. Fortunately, the “Rockettes for Jesus” moment never materialized and the show ended in grand style with the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.

As the music to the Hallelujah chorus began, the crowd slowly stood. I remembered this happening being explained to me before. Apparently at the first performance of the “Messiah” in 1742, King George II was so moved by the time the first strains of the Hallelujah chorus rang out that He spontaneously stood to his feet. At the standing of the king, the entire room stood and remained standing through the performance of the song that ends the 2nd act of the “Messiah.” So to this day, as a remembrance of that event, whenever the Hallelujah chorus begins, the audience stands. Most of the crowd in the room last night had no idea what they were doing. Most simply noticed the few standing and so stood with them as if to say “oh, so we’re doing this now.”

Was it the power of the song that moved the king to stand? Was it the movement from the song that precedes “Hallelujah,” one of man’s rejection of the Messiah, into this triumphant passage from Revelation 19 that drew him to his feet? Was he simply tired of sitting and ready for the second intermission?

Whatever the king’s reason for that first silent standing ovation, I was pleased to carry on his tradition last night. The opening notes of that chorus are triumphant and powerful and the moment in future human history that they depict are equally exultant. The gift of song drew me to my feet last night so I thought a gift of song would be an appropriate response from me today. I’ve posted a little Christmas gift on THE MYSPACE PAGE. It’s a Christmas song I wrote a few years ago called “Heaven’s Perfect Gift.” No one has ever recorded this one but I’m convinced it will land somewhere someday. In the meantime, I hope it lands on your iPod. Enjoy the download and Merry Christmas.

“The angels raise their hallelujahs. They lift their praise to heaven’s King. This little baby, God among us. Let us, with the angels, sing - Immanuel, now our God is with us. Immanuel, Christ the King is with us.“

So Much Road, So Little Time

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks on the road and I’ve met so many cool people along the way. I’ve started doing some VIDEO BLOGS from the road. You should head over and check some out. My wife got to looking on youtube at bunny videos and quickly asked in a little girl voice, “why doesn’t OUR bunny have his own video?” So for the good of my marriage I’ve posted a quick little BUNNY VIDEO of our pet rabbit, Dakota on youtube. Come check it out.

This weekend, my new friends at West Hartselle in Alabama treated me like a king. I should have been exhausted from the late night before (got to the hotel around 2 AM) but I was so energized by their encouragement that the day was a breeze. A really sweet church. Before that I made a bunch of new friends at the WRITE ABOUT JESUS conference in St. Louis. It’s always such a rewarding weekend and this year was no exception. I got to sit on the stage beside the piano while DANIEL KIRKLEY sang a favorite song. Meal times are always my favorite at WAJ; crashing at tables with 7 other people that start as strangers and are old friends by desert.

I did chapel at Mississippi College before that and missed seeing Katy, Aaron, and Allyson while I was there. Sorry! Still it was great worship and fun to catch up with my friend Eric.

Even in October, the powdery beaches of the Gulf Coast are gorgeous. I had fun wandering in the sand with the crew from FBC Covington. Big love to Danni and Victoria for keeping me out of trouble at the Mall and to Josh for coming to the rescue with a video projector for Saturday’s worship gatherings. From pizza to donuts to chicken it was almost an entirely vegetable free weekend! Thank you, Lord for EDAMAME.

Last thought, sales of the new CD are going great on iTunes. Better than I ever expected. Just so you know, on the MYSPACE SITE I’ve posted a bonus copy of the record. The EP actually only has 6 songs on it. In the Snocap store I have added 4 bonus tracks that are available exclusively there. You’ll find “Just a Question” which is this month’s Random OTHER Song of the Month, “Someone,” “Can Not Close My Heart” which is about my experience in Southern Africa last year and “Before This Moment Dies.” Enjoy!

See ya along the road.

Wounded Reactors and Pendulum Swingers

We’re a reactive people aren’t we? We are pendulum swingers. In the past, I have railed against traditionalists who appear more committed to do the same thing than they are to doing the right thing. I’ve become more conscious recently of the way those of us who carry traditionalist baggage do the same thing. Instead of doing something because it’s the right thing, we simply do the opposite of what a traditionalist might do.

The first church I served as a staff member had grown out of split from an old traditional downtown church. I remember the pastor telling me I could do anything I wanted as long as it didn’t look or sound like something a traditional church would do. I remember a worship leader from a very progressive church suggesting that his church didn’t use video projection of song lyrics during worship because they didn’t want to be “that kind of church.” Recently I’ve been in conversation with some progressive Christ-followers who have become convinced we shouldn’t participate in international mission work because of the self-centered excesses in mission work in the Church’s recent history.

I suppose it’s not realistic to think that we might divorce ourselves from the past enough to choose the right thing instead of simply reacting to past thing. If small groups are a great way to build community, maybe we should try them even if they look or sound like the Sunday school of our childhood. If a video projector helps people lift up their heads and free up their hands in worship maybe it’s okay even though there are also showy, performance oriented churches that all use projectors in their worship gatherings. If God has made the call for us to “go and make disciples of all nations” abundantly clear in scripture maybe we should go wisely even though in the past some Christ-followers have gone on mission trips that refuse to live missionally while at home in their own community.

I’m another wounded Christ-follower trying hard to put down the baggage of past church experiences and figure out how to do the right things whether they’ve been done that way before or not.

Unplugged

Just got back from spending the weekend getting unplugged with the crew from FBC Nashville. The showed up technologically as well. Big love to Doy Cave for making some much needed technical updates on the website this weekend. That meant of course that the site and email were “unplugged” for a while as well. If you tried to say hello and the message bounced back. TRY ME AGAIN. Had a blast hanging with Sammy Ward this weekend. Good to catch up with an old friend.

I’ve found some new friends hanging out in a corner of the web called VIRB. As a motivation for coming over to visit this week I am going to make the song FOURTEEN available for download for FREE until this Friday (September 7). So come over to VIRB and visit and download a free song while you’re there. Have a blast celebrating this obscure holiday that somehow relates to LABOR UNIONS. Do those even still exist?