One particular area in which we see his creativity is in music. Music has the power to move people in a way that words fail to achieve. It can lift us to new heights, and take us on a journey to places unexpected.

At the 2004 TWIST Music Conference, Mike Raiter spoke of the power of the song. In referring to the wonderful Colin Buchanan concert the night before, he said that because of his gift of music, Colin could have taken our crowd anywhere. “But”, he observed, “aren’t we thankful that he took us to God!”

We know the power of music. We use it every week to proclaim God’s praises. Yet, we want to make sure we use this powerful tool to achieve the best possible outcomes.

That’s why it’s important our musicians are well trained. That’s why the TWIST Music Conference is such an important event for our musicians.

Registrations close Monday night, and the conference begins the Saturday after. Don’t miss out on stimulating teaching from Mike Raiter, terrific congregational music from some of Australia’s most gifted musos, and invaluable hands-on training in many great workshops.

Full details at www.twist.org.au. Don’t miss out!

Here’s an excerpt:

Now I recognise that speaking this way does little to give me youth ministry street-cred (or whatever it’s called these days). I am at great risk of being labelled out-of-touch, over-the-hill, geriatric, or whatever term of endearment the younger folk might care to give me. But I wonder whether or not there are certain tempos and vocal styles that are incompatible with congregational singing, even for a group of people who are regular listeners of heavy metal?

It is true that this will be popular for consumers. I, for one, hate being locked into one format for my downloadable songs. I worry that by buying a U2 song from iTunes that I’ll never be able to play my full collection of music on Windows Media Player, should I decide to churn players. I also worry that the resolution is too low on the downloadable songs, and would instead prefer a CD. This new move from EMI solves both problems, as the new downloads will be at double the current quality.

However, is the move to remove protection based on an optimistic view of society? Does it assume that people are generally good? Does it presume that people will not illegally copy music and give it to others? The problem for the record companies is that CDs already are unprotected, and this practice already goes on everywhere in brazen disobedience to the law. So, my guess is that this move recognises that people will continue to copy music no matter what ‘protection’ they provide. So, rather than try and restrict people from breaking the law, they will need to try a different approach.

Some copying of music is legitimate, for example, for personal backups of the media. Removing this restriction will mean the honest people will gain freedoms. Yet, it will also mean that the already rife practice of illegally distributing material will continue, since the bad guys will always work out a way to copy things.

I think it’s a very clever move from Steve Jobs from Apple, and also from EMI. It rewards honest customers, provides an incentive to buy from iTunes (the higher resolution) and gives up trying to restrict the lawbreakers. It is a mixture of a retrieval ethic (seeking the most loving outcome within the environment of an evil world) and clever marketing.

She’s going to chat with me specifically about the TWIST Music Conference in August, and the DVD we made from last year.

If you haven’t seen the DVD, here’s a sneak peak of the song ‘Never Alone’:

Buy the full DVD at www.twistconference.com. 

Check here after the interview for an update on how it went.

[PS. Sorry if you tuned in two Mondays ago and didn't hear me... the original interview was delayed.  But fingers crossed for Monday!]

It brings memories back to me of an amazing night… an amazing experience! I’ve been a crazy U2 fan since my mate Dave Maegraith dragged me along to the movies to see ‘Rattle and Hum’ in 1988. I saw them live in the ‘Love comes to Town’ tour that followed in 1989.

Without taking anything away from the talent of Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam, it reminds me that the euphoria many people experience in religious contexts is not necessarily of divine origin. I’m not ruling it out, but I’m not saying that a powerful sense of emotion is guaranteed to be from God. I felt amazing that night in Nov 11, but it was from U2, not God. Although, God certainly did create Bono’s amazing voice and The Edge’s incredible guitar interpretation, and the driving bass of Adam, and the solid and powerful drums of Larry.

What a night! What a single. Grab it for yourselves from iTunes. And listen out for the tribute to Cate Blanchett… and the amazing digeridoo in the background…

The continued growth of TWIST, the music conference of Emu Music and Youthworks is causing more growing pains. As a result of three years of capacity crowds, despite increasing the venue size every year, we need somewhere larger.

To solve this problem, we will be moving this year to The Kings School, in Parramatta, to a venue that can seat in excess of 1000 people.

This year’s conference will be held on Sat 12th – Sun 13th August, 2006. Our guest speaker is John Dickson.

For full details, including online registration, visit www.twist.org.au

It was a great thrill to be a part of the TWIST Music Conference last weekend. This important event provides training and encouragement for people involved with music ministry in their local church.

During the weekend, I MC’d the main sessions (including the special live recording on the Saturday night for the upcoming EMU Music Live CD). I also conducted training sessions on the topics “Youth Ministry and Music” and “Rethinking Church”.

To read more about the conference, check out the recent article in sydneyanglicans.net titled “TWIST – but don’t shout.” You can also visit the official TWIST website at www.twist.org.au

I had the privilege of managing Nathan’s music career during the time he launched his first two CDs. It was an exciting and rocky road, especially with the mega concert at the Homebush State Sports Centre in 1997 that turned out to be a little less mega than we had hoped!

Nathan continues to write wonderful songs that present the gospel of Jesus in a way that is both faithful to scripture and musically outstanding. His band last night was excellent, perfectly capturing the CD arrangements, whilst adding a great ‘live’ feel.

For more details on Nathan’s music visit http://www.nathantasker.com/

This weekend, over 350 delegates joined together for the second annual TWIST Music Conference. Featuring talks by Mike Raiter, and music from Colin Buchanan, Nathan Tasker and Nicky Chiswell, the weekend was a wonderful success.

This joint venture of Emu Music (www.emu.mu) and Anglican Youthworks (www.youthworks.net) provided practical music training, as well as two talks on the theology of music and song.

A highlight of the conference was the Saturday night with Colin, especially for me, as I was given the privilege to interview him, and also to see my two girls join him on stage for ‘Isaiah 53:6′ (see photo).

My role was to chair the sessions, which included an hour-long interview with Colin, a performance with Nathan Tasker, a panel with some guests, and the two standard sessions. I also conducted a training session called ‘Youth Ministry and Music’.

For details of next year’s conference, be sure to check (www.conferences.youthworks.net) or send me an email.