It's been over a week?!? Well, this is going to be a looooong one.

Let me set the atmosphere for you right now. It's about 7:11pm on a beautiful Michigan Sunday afternoon. I'm sitting at my desk on my powerbook, my little parrot professor is looking at me because she doesn't have any food. She keeps on biting her food dish, and that means she's hungry. She'll have to wait until I'm done with this blog. She needs to learn patience. I only have one light on right now, it's the little lamp right above my desk. It's setting the mood pretty nice. I've been thinking about lighting a candle but I don't think I will as I'm not in the mood for a headache from the smell. Tara is on the floor right now (she wanted to be there, I didn't put her there) she's making name desk tags for her students. They chose spanish names within the last week, pretty different stuff. She teaches near detroit and it's mostly an African American school. Let me give you an example of some of the names of her students . . . Jada, Mikyelah, DeMarko, Juwaun, Bril, Materre, Dy'Amond, Tamia, Nakayla, Ke-Shawn, Ebony, Haleem, India, Jalizic, Kortez, Daze', Psyche', Tyjadah, Moses, Niquelle, Myr'esha, Ja'lynn and my favorite, A'myrkal. I guess her parents thought she was indeed, a miracle. I wish I was spelling all those names wrong, but I spell checked, and had Tara spell Check as well. I love the fact that Tara is a teacher, it's so awesome. I'm very proud of her. I find it funny that I'm half hispanic, can't speak one word of spanish and she's white and is teaching Spanish in a African American school in the Ghetto. Actually, it's not that bad, but it's pretty close to the Ghetto. But regardless, I'm proud of her. Here's a real time picture of Tara working. . . .Hello Tara!! He's my girlfriend. I'm also listening to the new Charlie Hall CD and it's awesome. So a couple of things, I've been spending a lot of my time working on an event called See You After the Pole. For those that don't know, See you At the pole is an awesome event started by students in about 1998 where they began once a year to meet at their school's flag pole early in the morning and pray for their community, school and country. I was in charge of a lot of the progamming of the event as well as leading the worship. The goal was to have multiple bands from students for multiple churches, but it was just the 2|42 StuCo Band and two other students from other churches. There was 8 of us and we played about 7 songs. It was amazing. We lead for about 400 students from all over the community, from all churches and demoninations. It was quite some work setting up practices and everything and making sure everyone was on the same page for everything. But it was great meeting with the Livingston County Youth Leaders for a couple days straight. Good to be apart of Unity in the Community, OH MY GOODNESS THAT RHYMES! Anywho, Here's the pictures and some video from the event. Now for some video, I'm going to try and see if this works . . . . .



Here's another video . . . .

It was such a great experience, I've been involved the last two years but this one was definately way cooler than the last. It was also cool to build relationships with the students that were involved as well as getting to meet their friends.

Being Sunday, of course, this is the highlight of my week. I got up today at around 5:55, yes 5 minutes to eat Breakfast. I had so much stuff to carry in this Sunday, my drums, two laptops, two lamps, a guitar, a sound board etc . . etc . . .goes on and on it seems. Thank goodness I didn't sell my Truck. It's a 1996 Isuzu Trooper and I use it often, I just can't wait to drive it in the snow with it's super awesome and or amazing Four Wheel Drive! Whoohoo for Snow and Michigan. So anywho, a Student Ben Led today and he did amazing, we also played the Cover song "Control" by MuteMath, it went awesome, We played along to a loop and I sang it and it went really well. I was very proud of the students today, they've come a long way since the first time we all played together. They've really grown and have carried their weight.
Here's some pictures from Band practice on Thursday . . . . .
Lauren was supposed to be there but she couldn't get off work. It's alright, she's really devoted and has an amazing voice, sometimes it just doesn't work out, I'm thrilled she apart of our Arts team. We're practicing at Lakewood Church, a Church that was given to us, this is where our offices are. That's Jordan on the drums, he's super talented, I'm starting to teach him on this Thursday. That's Ben leading right now, great voice, that's Jonny on Guitar and Zack rockin' the low end. The lover of the low end. The Sub sonic bo' bonic Chronic, as we like to say. It starts at 7 then ends at 9pm. All this work for the big day . . . . SUNDAY, here's some shots of Sunday, Sunday Sunday!
This is from the 9:30 Service. It's the JR. High Service. We have 30 students if we're lucky. We normally have between 70-80 at the 11am service. It's mostly Sr. High Students.
I made the designs on the screens.
























This is what it's like when we have to tear everything down. Total Chaos! No actually, it's one of the best parts of the day, we all joke around with eachother and just build relationships. Good stuff. That's Jay's feel sticking out there. He's kind of a dork. haha, no he's cool.




Alright, well Tara and I are going to make something to eat. I think all I have left is Brat's and Asparagus, Sounds good to me. I think Asparagus is one of my most favorite vegetables. Alright, until next time!!! I promise it won't be so long until my next Blog.

Jonathan

Adobe Photoshop!

I need to get used to this whole blogging thing, I keep on forgetting. Actually, I have to be honest here, that's not entirely true, I do think about it, but I am committed to doing much more important things, like learning Photoshop. I recently for the program, thank you to all who donated it to me. I really appreciate it. I learned a little on photoshop a while back, but this time, I'm going to make sure I stick with it and remember how to actually use the program. I've got a long way to go, but I think I've pretty much got the gist of it. I spent the last couple of days making sure things for SYATP things are all lined up, I think it's going to be really good. We've got some cool elements lined up. Anyways, back to photoshop, let me show you some of the stuff I did within the last couple days of NOT blogging. We had a StuCo Leaders meeting on Friday and one concern was how he don't have a lot of students serving with Set up and tear down, so, we decided something needed to be done about it. Every week we send out a email newsletter, which is a part of my job description, and I made this slide to help promote our need for Roadies. We'll see how it goes, we're all praying. Another cool thing is that this past Sunday we had over 101 students! The most we've ever had was 110 and then it kind of slide off when summer came, and now we're back up. So that's awesome. So I made this little slide to celebrate our Win for the ePistle, our StuCo news letter . . . .
It's a little chessy but it's still a cool slide for the occasion. It's the first slide I made. Then, I got bored last night while I was watching Mad Money which my roomate got from NetFlix and I made this slide, which later led to the making of my Blog title, which you see above.
Tonight should be really fun, Tara just got a new apartment in Plymouth and we're going out to eat tonight and just chilling at her apartment. I'm at the office right now but I'm going to teach a Student how to play drums, every Wednesday at 5 and then at 6 I teach a Student guitar. It'll be fun. Alright, well I'm out of here, I'll blog again tomorrow.

Until Next time!

ANN ARBOR!

I have to say, I AM SO PUMPED! Every thursdays we have a staff meeting, in which all of the staff at 2|42 meet together and talk about everything going on in the church. It starts at 10 and normally lasts for 2 hours. Today we spent almost all of our time talking about the Ann Arbor campus launch. Dave is an amazing Vision caster and just gets you thrilled about things. We've set a date for the new launch. It's in March 2008. We haven't decided about a place and we've already established "Discovery Meetings" in Ann Arbor in which we'll meet in AA and have a worship service and just vision cast to everyone who comes. Just like we did 4 years ago with the Brighton Campus. Amazing stuff. StuCo is planning to launch 6 months after the launch date in March. If I'm not supposed to be posting this in a blog, I'm sure Brad will let me know, but Dave didn't say anything about keeping this to ourselves. Anywho, I know I haven't written in about 4 days, I have to be honest, I think blogging is stupid, but it's kind of relaxing and puts things into persepctive. Today (thursday) I got into the office at around 10pm for the start of the staff meeting, I figure since I'm going to be there all day because of StuCo band practice from 7pm to 9pm I might as well come in at 10. The staff meeting was a huge encouragement. I brought my lunch today but Brad insisted that I go out to eat with everyone, I told him no. So we went to a Chinese buffet in Howell that was pretty nasty. I'm pretty sure it was Cat and Dog that they served that was soaked, marinated and baked in MSG. The good thing is that they had pretty good ice cream. Being the lactose intolerant person that I am, I jumped on the opportunity to have some Strawberry flavored lactose. Bad idea. Anyways, after come back from Lunch, I learn more about the new planning center tutorials, the new Arts website and imported all the StuCo artists into it as well as out lined all of the StuCo Services for the next seven weeks. We've got some cool series coming up. Most everyday I send out about 10 emails at least. Today, Jeff was making a lego video for the sunday after next and I did some voices for it and made a "Angelic who Haw's" in Reason for the video. You'll see it in the next couple of weeks. Good stuff. After that, Thomas showed up and we spent about 3 hours sitting down in front of our computers. I taught him Reason and how to set up a Midi keyboard (Thomas is a very talented Sophomore that plays in the Youth Band) and use a midi keyboard. He already downloaded the Demo so the learning process was very smooth. I can't wait until he starts to make drum loops for the services and uses organs and pad with the songs. That'll add so much. We're going to try and meet up every week and nail stuff down for the services. Then for band practice. It went very well, Jay couldn't be there because of a soccer game, but it's all Good. It went smooth. We've started having practices at Lakewood in the Main sanctuary while the Adult service does it in the Back room. We use the sound system there and it works out pretty well. It'll be good. Everything was easy to hear and I didn't have cotton ear afterward! After that I took Ricky home and got here around 10:30. I was supposed to help Tara pack, she's moving to Plymouth on Saturday to be nearer to her job but I was completely exhausted. I've been at the office for 12 hours. I was starting to get sick of smelling old church. She was okay with it. So here I am, writing on a blog while my parrot looks at me with those big bird eyes. She wants to sit on my knee, but I'm not going to let her, it's too late for some parrot action. Tomorrow should be an interesting day. At 9am Brad and I are meeting at the Naz to nail down a rehearsal space and place for See You At The Pole 2008. I'm leading the youth bands for this. It'll be cool. I just re-read this and the grammar and punctuation is terrible. I really don't want to proof read this. Okay, till next time! I'll try upload more pictures each day about what went on. Where the action is happening. Okay, once again, Until next time!

Oh man, what can I say? It's been a crazy two days! It's now Saturday and the last time I updated my blog was wednesday, the first day. On thursday I got into the office at around 9 am, it was just Joy and I who was there for about a half hour. On thursday is the huge staff meeting where we basically make sure we're all on the same page and talk about anything related to the church, it was really cool to see all that's happening with the church and to be on the same page with all the ministries. It was also nice for Dave to give me a formal welcome so it was cool. I know all the staff members pretty well so it's nice to have a job where I feel like I fit in from day one. After the staff meeting we all went to the Bluefin which is an amazing hibachi restuaurant right in Howell, after spending $15 there ($10 more than I wanted to spend) we all came back the office and did our work. I made the new StuCo schedule and sent out about 20 emails, haha. I'm really starting to work with the artists in giving lessons and showing them new programs for drum loops and sampling etc . . . It's going to be awesome when all this gets up and running. I'm meeting with Thomas on Wednesday after work to show him reason 3. He'll implement that on Sunday and it's going to freaking rock. Anywho, that took up most of my time. But I'm glad it done and over with. I left the office at about 5:30 and got home a little after 6, cooked some food and went right to band practice. Jonny, Allie, Zack and Jordan is playing this week. Practice went well but it got a little frustrating when we all weren't playing the right chords, haha. Oh geez. After that I came over and Tara came over and we watch some of season 4 of the office. If you haven't seen it, go out to a place where you rent or buy videos and watch and or rent it. It's amazing. So the next day, on Friday, I came into the office at the same time, 9. Brad and I were the first ones in. I learned how to do the StuCo ePistle, that is to be sent out no latter than the end of work hours on Wednesday. It seems pretty easy but it seems very time consuming. I'll do that on every Tuesday when I first come in. Then after that, I got into the StuCo production computer. That thing was a complete and total wreck there were files everywhere that they shouldn't have been and it was just a complete mess. So, in the process of moving everything into my external harddrive to back up then erase from the computer, I totally messed up Media shout, the program that you actually see on the screens every week. So Jeff really really really really really bailed me out. We got it all organized and squared away. Good thing it only took 4 hours. I got out of the office that night at around 7pm. But the awesome thing is that the computer is completely organized and sunday is going to be awesome. We have a lot of cool graphics and everything song has a sweet movie background added to it. That night Thomas was playing at an open mic night here in Whitmore Lake so a number of students and I went and watched him and Jonny play. And yes, they pretty much made me play so I played a song then made Kim come up and together we played a couple of worship songs together, it was pretty sweet. TODAY IS MY FIRST SATURDAY OFF IN ABOUT TWO YEARS!!!! That's a great feeling. I got up around 11am and played with Professor. While checking facebook I was completely shocked to see one of my good friends from HS died from a Heart attack. They're having a memorial service tomorrow so I'm saddened I can't go. I pray for this family and all his friends, he was only 23. I spent about an hour on facebook talking with a lot of my friends on the chat about it. It's now around 2pm and Tara and I are going to meet up and go grocery shopping. Should be fun. I can't keep on eating out with everyone, I'm going to go broke really quick. Looks like I'll be packing my lunch everyday!

Until next time!
Jonathan

Day Numero Uno of the Internship.

This day was probably the best first day I could have had. All the staff was very cool. I really didn't do a lot today, mostly setting up my new email address (jonathan@242community.com) and organizing my contacts in Address Book on my Mac. I took about two hours to get my computer to accept both my google account and church account through Apple mail. Yeah, that was pretty frustrating. I've been using Google for all my email contacts and for all my email needs. Basically, Google was my online address book, which was really unorganized. So I spent a good 4 hours working with setting up an efficient way to get in contact with everyone I need. It's so crazy not being at my regular job today. I've worked there for almost 2 years and the days consisted of walking around the entire day, here, I've just sat at a desk the entire time. I think I'm going to enjoy this, I just have to make sure I exercise so I don't get fat. Jeff is working on learning this new program called "planning center" which will change the way the artists at 2|42 can find the material they need for the services. I spent about 30 minutes just dabbing around with that. It'll replace the "Arts site." I'm a little concern the students won't adapt to it as it's kind of complicated and requires a little more time. We'll see, I'll implement it here in the next week or so. The staff all ate at Jimmy John's today. Okay, well I'm going to make a couple of calls for a drum set that Jeff wants to get. Looks like we'll be driving to Detroit to pick it up. Until next time!!