Fun With Abbie

Posted on April 11, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

Last night, Abbie woke up around 3:00 a.m. which I immediately heard. She kinda fell back asleep only to wake up crying. So, being the wonderful father and husband I am, I went and got Abbie to try and get her back asleep. An hour and a half later, Abbie was still awake in my arms and now she was crying. Loudly. It was 4:40 a.m. Then all of a sudden, Andrea whips into the room, snatches Abbie from my hands and takes her to bed. Never a peep from Abbie until the alarm went off. Go figure.

So we found out that she is getting two top teeth at the same time. No wonder she woke up.

So tonight, as I was giving Abbie a bath, she pooped in her little bath tub. The joys of parenthood. I do find it amazing that Abbie is 9 1/2 months old and this is the first time she has pooped in the bath tub.

I’m tired and I had to clean poop out of the bathtub, but I still love that girl!

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Some Quick Hit News

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

Several things I wanted to blog about, none of which I thought I should give a whole blog to. So I am going to give you a bullet point blog.

  • We stayed home this weekend. We watch Blood Diamonds on Saturday. It features Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly. It was a really good movie- a moving story. Maybe one of the best I’ve seen in over a year. It tells a tale of conflict diamonds…diamonds that are mined in conflict zones using forced labor. The diamonds are sold to buy weapons which kill more people. At the end of the movie, people were encouraged to inquire as to whether the jewelers they use are sure there diamonds are not conflict diamonds. Another part of the movie that was gripping was the realistic portrayal of the horror of child soldiers. Children who are kidnapped, brainwashed, and taught to kill. One could watch Invisble Children and follow it up with Blood Diamonds to get an image of the child soldier problem.

  • Has anyone been following the “man” who is pregnant. You can read the story here, here, and here. The story goes that the ‘man’ is a woman who had a sex reassigment surgery, yet kept his female reproductive organs. “His” wife has been unable to conceive. Rather than find a suragate…He became pregnant to carry the baby. Alright folks…’he’ is still a she biologically. This is not a biological man having a baby. This is a woman who had a surgery to identify herself as a male having a baby. It makes for a strange story with a crazy headline, but there is no biological man having a baby.

  • On a lighter note, Abbie began to walk with the assistance of a walker. It was exciting to see her stand up on her own and walk across the floor (With a little help)

  • Seminary has been a little disappointing this semester. Neither of my classes have been particularly challenging.

That is all for now. I will be posting no later than tomorrow on a sermon I am working on. Many blessings.

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More Recording News

Posted on April 4, 2008 by Steve LaMotte
This past Wednesday, we started working on vocals for our songs. We made it through three songs during our session. We have a bunch of vocalist and trying to preserve the team concept of getting everyone involved. We laid down vocals for Love Song, God of Wonders, and How Great is Our God. It was a good night, but our next session (in May) should move faster. (You learn a lot in process!) Here are some pics from the session.

Erin playing flute on God of Wonders


Ken adding some vocals

Steve adding some violin to Love Song

We are shooting for 12 songs on the CD…and we’ll come away with a minimum of 10. We have one more song to record the instrumentation for yet. But the project is coming along. Hearing the songs with some vocals was really exciting.

Here is a track listing of the songs that we’re planning on putting on the disc. (Authors listed when as I can remember)

  1. Love Song- Jason Morant
  2. How Great is Our God- Laura Story
  3. God of Wonders- Marc Byrd/Mac Powell
  4. You Are Holy (Prince of Peace)
  5. Surrender- Dave Lubben
  6. Grace Like Rain- Todd Agnew
  7. Your Love is Extravagent- Darrell Evans
  8. I Am Free- Jon Egan
  9. Friend of God- Israel Houghton
  10. Amazing Grace(My Chains Are Gone)- Chris Tomlin
  11. Amazed- Jared Anderson
  12. Love the Lord- Lincoln Brewster

So that is the track listing. I have no idea what order they are going to be in. We get a rough mixed CD this week to practice vocals with. I may drop that in iTunes and mess with different song orders to see what flows well.

Until next time…have a great day!

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Back From Spring Break- Back To The Grind

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Steve LaMotte
I spent all of Spring Break home with Andrea and Abbie, other than a few hours spent at the Church. We did a lot of relaxing. It was a great week. This past weekend, we went to Lancaster, PA for a weekend away. We ate really well, slept a lot, and got to see our friends BJ and Rachel Whitaker. All in all, it was a great spring break.

Now I have to get in gear as I finish up six more weeks of school. I am caught up for this weeks class, but I am pretty uninterested in the semester. I am ready to be done and on to other things.

One of the things we are working on is a remodel-addition to our house. We hope to have plans drawn up this week for to add a garage and a room. We’re not looking to do a huge addition, just enough to add storage and create one more room to expand to as we have kids, guest, etc. We went to Lowe’s and had our kitchen redesigned. We are happy how it turned out and cannot wait to do it.

Tomorrow night, we go back to the recording studio to work on vocals for our songs. As promised, here is a pictures. It’s hard to take pictures of yourself while recording, so there is just one of me. That is Erin C. on the right. She plays bass with our worship team.

Until next time, have a great week!

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Happy Easter to Everyone!

Posted on March 22, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

Well, it has been awhile since I have written anything, thanks to the busy Easter season. We had a great Holy Week at Avenue so far. We had two great experiential and contemplative services on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. They are refreshing because they are different than what we do on Sunday morning. Last night, I was at the sound board for the majority of the service and it was a blessing to take in the service rather than leading it for once.

Andrea and I are both on Spring Break this week. Well, I am off school, but still have work. I am working from home most of the week in order to spend more time with Andrea and Abbie (who know has 5 teeth and is 9 months old!). We are heading to Lancaster, PA next weekend to hangout with our friends BJ and Rachel Whitaker. I have minimal school work to do this week, so it will be a nice change of pace.

In other news, our worship team began recording a CD last week. We did five songs on the first marathon session. I will be posting a studio blog later with details and pictures. We head back to the studio this Wednesday to lay down some more tracks. It’s pretty exciting, but really tiring too!

Finally, I hope that everyone has a blessed Easter and that you experience the presence of the Risen Christ in your life!

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Moses and Mind-Bending Drugs

Posted on March 5, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

So I don’t really recommend using mind-bending narcartics to create a more intense spiritual experience. Evidently, at least one scholar believes that Moses was high and in a mind-altared stated when he heard God’s voice in the burning bush. You can read the article here.

I’m aware that opiates and other mind-altering drugs have (and are still) used in various religious exercises of different faiths. What I don’t agree with the researcher is that Moses had to be high to hear from God. The researcher said,

“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic
event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or
finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of
Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on
Tuesday.

Basically, the researches believes the event happened (which means it is not legend), but that it was not a supernatural cosmic event. Hence the need for drugs to have the experience Moses had. There are some that beleive that the crowds that saw Jesus ascend into heaven were experiencing a group hallucination.

I think what we see is that we have lost the ability to believe in the supernatural power of God. We have found, through science, that many times there is a quantitative explanation for each event. And while I affirm what science does- it is simply amazing, but science does not mean that God does not work inside and outside the realms of the laws of nature. One should seriously consider reading Francis Collins’ book, The Language of God.

Here is my big problem with Shanon, the researcher in the article above…our stance on this comes down to our view of God. First, if God is the Creator of the universe, then God can altar the rules of nature to communicate to His created beings. If God created the sea, then God can part the sea. If God breathed life into humanity, than God can certainly bring a person back from the dead. Miracles occur because God exist outside our concept of time and space. God is transcendant, above and beyond our limitations and boundaries.

Is the God we serve and worship big enough to work in miraculous ways? I believe that God is.

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Catching Up

Posted on March 2, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

I have been wanting to post a blog for several days now. I’ve had one rolling around in my head. But today will not be the day to do it. Maybe tomorrow.

We’ve had a busy week. There has been something going on every night. I did a wedding on Saturday and saw our High School’s performance of Fiddler on the Roof (They did excellent!). Abbie came down with a cold last night, so I was up part of the night with her (superdad!). Andrea had a committment today, so Abbie and I hung out. She was feeling pretty bad a wouldn’t take a nap. So I loaded her in the car and drove. She fell asleep. So did I when we got back in our driveway. We snoozed for about 15 minutes just sitting in the car!

Church was decent today. I was so tired from last night that I was kinda out of it. I think I need a week off (I have coming!).

I am hoping to put up a real post tomorrow (or the next day).

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RIP-Myron Cope

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

It’s a sad day in Steeler-land at the news of the passing of long-time radio broadcaster Myron Cope. Myron is a legend for any Steeler fan born after 1971 when he shared his first Steeler game with HOF QB Terry Bradshaw in the newly opened Three Rivers Stadium. Myron was a well known sports writer before heading to the radio booth- with articles regularly appearing in Sports Illustrated. Cope also coined the “Immaculate Reception” and created the Terrible Towel. Cope was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame a few years ago.

I grew up listening to many Steeler games on the radio. We often visited my grandmother on Sundays as a family, so we listened to the game on the way home. Anyone who has listened to Cope will never forget his voice. When I was younger, I often didn’t quite understand what he was saying. While I don’t think that my dad enjoyed listening to Cope, but I thought he was great.

So in honor of Cope and his contribution to the sporting world, we should all lift our glasses and give a “Double Yoi!” for this distinguished voice of Steeler lore.

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Passion Regional Conference: Washington D.C.

Posted on February 24, 2008 by Steve LaMotte

Our Passion Conference weekend got off to a little icy start. While watching the weather, I decided not to bring our group to D.C. on Friday. The incoming track didn’t look too promising. With that decision made, we left early on Saturday for the Passion Conference in DC.

Now, I’ve been a fan of the Passion cd’s since they first started coming out. I always wanted to go to Atlanta or Tennessee to the big four day conference. So I was pretty excited to be able to take a group of students from our church. This was kind of the big kick-off for our college/young adult ministry as we look to begin bigger things in May.

The conference was everything I thought it would be. Great worship, challenging messages, and an electric atmosphere. I really enjoyed Charlie Hall as he led worship. Francis Chan gave a great talk about resting the knowledge that God loves us…and that God cannot love us any less or any more than how much He loves us right now. This is a tough thing to grasp because there are times where I feel I try to earn God’s love.

I also appreciated the prayer time at the end of the evening for the different campuses, students, and towns. I think it gave me a fresh heart to be in prayer for our college students on a different level…going for more depth. I was also encouraged to be in prayer for Milford and how our church can be a beacon to our community.

All in all, it was a great day. I’m a little tired (I only got 4 hours sleep before getting up for church). But I feel blessed to be able to worship the True God with the students who gathered this weekend.

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CD’s/Artist That Impacted My Life (Pt. 2)

Posted on February 21, 2008 by Steve LaMotte
So it’s time for part 2 of my blog series on CD’s/Artist that made an impact on my life. We’re still not out of the cheesey period that was 80’s/90’s Christian Music. And yeah, some of this is cheesey, but it helped me stay focused on my faith while. So, here we go…

DeGarmo and Key- The Pledge (1989)
I’ve gone through a couple websites with discography information on D&K and I still think The Pledge was my favorite. They definately fit the 80’s mold of synth rock. They got a little heavier on guitar as the 90’s rolled in. The Pledge was a perfect mix. Boycott Hell was one of my favorite songs growing up and listening to this tape. D&K had their video, “Six, Six, Six” on MTV back when MTV still played videos (Mid-1980’s). Rumor has it the video was removed (which it was) because it was too violent. Most likely, the folks at MTV realized that D&K was a Christian band. Here is their video for Six, Six, Six:

Yeah, that video looks pretty dated. Classic though.

The thing that stands out to me for the album The Pledge…is the title song. As a young Christian, I was challenged by the chorus which stated, “He died for me. I’ll live for Him.” Very simple, but it was an easy way for me to keep focused on Christ in what I did.

I saw Degarmo and Key at least once in conert. I believe it was for their “Heat It Up” Tour. I know that I had all of their tapes that came after The Pledge, which is why they show up here in the series.

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