Guitar Strings...GRRR!

On Saturday, in preparation for leading worship yesterday at church, I decided to change the strings on my guitar. For those who don't know about changing guitar strings, when you put on a new set, they take a little while to "settle in" and stay in tune. After changing my strings I played for a while and things seemed to be in good shape. The next morning at practice some minor re-tuning was needed but no big deal. Then service came.
On the first song my 'b' string seemed to be a bit out of tune, so I re-tuned it and went on my way. But after each song it was more and more out of tune. I tried to play only low strings or adjust the fret or two during the song, but mostly it just sounded terrible. By the next to last song my 'b' string was dropping a minor third (down to G# or as bad as it could possibly make my guitar sound) after just a few strums. One of the women helping sing that morning stepped up to the mic and said something to the effect of it being good that God hears the praise of our heart, out of tune guitars and all.
After finishing, I went and removed the string and put it right back on. Problem solved (although I still don't know how the first time I put the string on things went so badly). Just a good reminder of what is important as I lead worship times and youth group things. Our hearts have to be offering all of ourselves to God.

Teens Need Adults!

I know, I know, I've gone post crazy! Two in a day!

I just read a blog post over on YPulse about the dangers of growing up in the suburbs. Basically, the thought is that suburban kids have higher rates of drug and alcohol use than inner city kids. Here is Anastasia's conclusion:

The article points to the need for more adult interaction with teens -- I don't think this has to be just parents, but what cities often offer that suburbs don't is a bigger sense of community and less isolation. My sense is that teens who live in cities do interact more with adults than the kids getting wasted on the golf courses....

I hope our youth group here in Lander is a place that is providing opportunities for those relationships between students and adults. I know relationships with adults had a huge impact on the choices I made as a teen. Just a good reminder of the importance of building relationships over making things that are flashy or cool just for the sake of being flashy or cool.

Utah Symphony Orchestra

Last night Shiloh and I went and heard the Utah Symphony Orchestra here in town. It was a nice evening out and the music was excellent. But as always, something much funnier happened during the performance (otherwise, why blog about it?)
Sitting in the row in front of us was a family with four kids. Their girl, maybe 9 or 10, thought the first half of the evening was the worst thing she ever had been to in her entire life. First, she tapped one of her brothers on the shoulder and pretended to yawn to show how boring this all was. Then came my favorite part of her act. She used her right hand to form a gun and put it up to her head and took the shot. Now that is all well and good, but she used her left hand on the other side of her head to show her brain blowing out every time she pulled the trigger. Occasionally she also would add sound effects. "pow" "bam" and other explosion related noises. Hilarious! She spent the second half of the night pretending that she was the conductor, which was mostly a distraction from hearing the orchestra play Beethoven's 7th Symphony which they did in amazing fashion. Also, the conductor had incredibly bouncy hair, my wife and the high school girls sitting behind us all said so. And best of all, it was a night out with my wife!