In Indy @ CCDA 2011

It’s been a great week this week being in Indianapolis at the CCDA Conference. It’s been a really busy week. I’ve been playing sax on the worship team lead by Louis Carlo (who is an awesome worship leader!) and a few members the CCDA Leadership Cohort. 

I’m presenting a workshop at 1pm today with my colleague Reynolds Chapman called Melody & Memory. A few months ago, Reynolds published an article in Christianity Today based off of the material he presents in our workshop. You can check out the link below:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/march/worshipinblackwhite.html

If you’re here at the conference, I want to encourage you to attend this workshop and at 3pm, I’ll be on a panel with other artist having a conversation about the Arts in Community Development.

Please come by if you get a chance!

New Location for CCDA Cafe

For those of you all that are planning to come to the CCDA Cafe, but haven't registered yet, I want to inform you that due to the high numbers of pre-registration, we've changed the location to Northminster Baptist Church (3121 Moss Side Avenue, Richmond, VA 23222) We hope to see you all there!

CCDA Coming to Richmond

Many of you all know that I am involved with community development. In a few weeks, I will be co-hosting a CCDA event with my friends and colleagues at Miss Marti's House and East End Fellowship. If you are involved in community development or interested in community development, I want to encourage you to come to this event!

We hope to see you there!

Internship: Congregational Songwriting for the Urban Context

I'm happy to announce that I'm piloting an internship program through my church community that will focus on writing congregational worship songs for the urban context. In this program, 4 interns will study theology, worship, and African-American music by the decade within its historical context, so that they can write theologically informed worship songs for the urban congregational context. 

The link to more information about the internship you can go to: 

http://www.eastendfellowship.org/worship-music-and-songwriting-summer-internship/2011/05/10/

The internship is a paid internship. If you know of anybody age 18-25 that would be interested, would you please let them know about it.

Thanks,

David

It's Been A Long Time

In the words of the old school rap duo, Eric B. & Rakim, "It's Been A Long Time."... It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything on this blog.  Things have been busy since I’ve gotten back from Honolulu.  

I presented the workshop at the CCDA conference in Chicago.  I had a blast at the conference in general and with our workshop specifically.  I’ll post a little more about our presentation in the near future, but right now, I would encourage you to attend the next national CCDA conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.  There are a lot of brothers and sisters doing innovative things to bring God’s Shalom to the under resourced communities of our country.

Since I’ve been back from Chicago, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio and doing a few gigs.  A few of the gigs were with Alex Mejias of High Street Hymns.  On one of those gigs was with Jimmy G of Mid Atlantic Christian Artist.  Jimmy is a really nice guy and you should check out his company.

We just finished the mixing and mastering for Logan Jones Music.  Logan was the writer for the BWC song “Hear The Spirit”.  I produced the EP for his band.  I’m pleased with the work.  Logan wrote some great songs and his band worked really hard to make this project good.  As far as a release date is concerned, look on Logan’s website because this part of business is out of my jurisdiction. 

There are a few more things that I’ll be announcing soon, but below are a few places that I’ll be in the next few months:

The Harvest Conference - October 29-31, 2010

I’ll be in Pittsburgh at the end of the month leading worship and giving a talk about the Community Discipline of Racial Reconciliation at an Intervarsity Conference.  I’m playing with the multi-ethic worship band, Kingdom Reflections, which is led by Kenny and Achlai Wallace.  Kenny is the Worship Pastor at Mosaic Church in Greensboro, NC.  Achlai is worship leader that is Haitian Canadian.  She grew up in Montreal, Canada and was apart of a really good multi-ethnic worship band that I can’t remember the name of, but they are awesome.  The Kingdom Reflection worship band is made up of people of different ethnicities and we sing worship songs of various languages and cultures.  Kenny and Achlai are multi-language worship leader rock stars in my book.

The National Mosaix Conference – November 2-3, 2010

I’ll be in San Diego, CA at the national Mosaix conference.  Mosaix is a network for churches that are interested in being a multi-ethnic congregation.  Mosaix equips church leaders and churches with the resources and connections to make this happen.  They have a goal of seeing 20% of local churches throughout the United States achieve 20% diversity within their congregations by the year 2020.  I’m not presenting, I’m just attending, but I’m excited to attend.

The Baptist General Association of Virginia – November 9, 2010

I’ll be in Hampton, VA at The Baptist General Association of Virginia meeting leading worship with part of the worship team from Honolulu.  It’ll be different leading worship this team with out palm trees and great weather… we should be able to get it together.   We are leading worship the first night.

Calvin Symposium on Worship – January 27-29, 2011

I’ll be in Grand Rapids, MI at the Calvin Symposium on Worship.  I’ll be on another multi-ethnic worship team leading worship, and presenting a workshop on “Learning Reconciliation through Community and Worship Music”.  I’ll also be on a panel discussing welcoming and worshipping with multi-ethnic communities with other worship leaders.  The worship team was assembled through the International Council of Ethnodoxoligist.  I'm thankful that they choose me to be a part of the team and I'm really looking forward to working with and learn from so many leading professionals in our field.

I want to really encourage you all to attend the Mosaix Conference and the Calvin Symposium if it is possible.  These two conferences have people that will be great resources to you if your into cultural diversity in your gatherings.

If you are at any of these conferences or you’re in town, let me know because I would love to connect with you.