We've Come a Long Way

So, yesterday afternoon, our Media Director got the video from the music and worship time on Sunday (May 3rd) edited and uploaded to our website (http://mpbc.ws/media/).  And as I always do on Monday afternoons, I watched through the entire video a couple of times to make notes of things to fix and of the things I liked. As I was watching the video it occurred to me:  WOW! WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY!  

What I mean by that is this. When I started at MPBC (almost 10 years ago) we were still in the old building (now called the Prayer Chapel). The room had one speaker (which was

blown), the piano wouldn't stay in tune, and the beautiful stained glass windows let in so much light on sunny days that it washed out the screen and you couldn't see the song lyrics. The band consisted of me and the pianist and a few IWORSHIP videos. The church already had a large choir (with lots of talent), but no praise team.  So, I had to lead every song.  And that's how we started.

Fast forward 10 years (almost) and you get this:

The band now consists of drums, synthesizer, piano, bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and occasionally violin. We have 2 teams of singers and 2 teams of band members. Everyone in the band uses in-ear monitors and most of the singers do as well (we hope to have everyone covered by the end of this church year).  A few of us have already switched from music in notebooks to music on IPADS (once again we hope to switch everyone else soon).  We have begun using multi-tracks (explained here:  http://mpbcworship.blogspot.com/2015/01/whats-next-part-1.html under Praise Team # 4).    We have LED lights on stage and out in the congregation.  We also have 3 projectors that just project videos and images that cover the entire front wall (called environmental projection). We have multiple screens, 4 cameras, and lots of speakers that actually work. Our Audio/Visual Team rotates 8 people (16 on the team) through different stations (sound, lights, computer, video camera, etc...) each Sunday.  And we still have the best and most talented choir around.

So, I say all of that to say this:  THANK YOU!!!

Thank you MPBC for loving worship and music.  Thank you for giving me and our worship team the freedom to try new things.  Thank you for investing in what we do.  Thank you for singing and raising your hands. Thank you for the kind and encouraging words when we need to hear them most.  Thank you for bearing with us when we are working out the kinks on something new.  Thank you for not complaining when we don't sing your favorite song.  Thank you for telling us you didn't "notice" when we messed up.  And thank you for being willing to change to help us as a church continue to grow.  You are the BEST!

Worship Big!

Brad