Fork In The Road Music

My thoughts on life, worship, communcation, church, and more

Caption Please

Kind of afraid to ask but… Do you have a caption for this photo?

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Searching

In one of the boxes pictured… There is coffee.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Winterfield Concert

Thanks so much to the congregation at Winterfield UMC in Longview for having me out. We ate Thanksgiving dinner and I shared some music.

The Setlist.. pretty much stuck to it

The set up… this has become pretty standard.. Bose sound system makes it so easy.

Guitar looks kind of lonely back there.

When is the last time they fed you a complete Thanksgiving dinner before you sang?

I invited the kids up to sing “Hey I Love Jesus” although this kind of looks like a version of “Baby Shark”

We got the “Oh how He set me free!” part together though! Thanks guys!

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Songwriting

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Russell’s Mobile Blog

Suggest Your Favorite Podcasts

I was listening to music on my iPhone the other day and I noticed that there was one category empty…. Podcasts.  I really hadn’t given much thought to podcasts until I took a trip down to Houston recently. On the way down I was tired of listening to music, but there was nothing on the radio. I stopped for dinner and began to browse through the podcasts in itunes. I downloaded several and had plenty to listen to the rest of the trip down, and back up.

The ones I started with were:

Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast- I really enjoy listening to Andy’s thoughts on leadership. The only thing I do not like is that this one only comes out once per month.

All About Worship Podcast- Wisdom Moon and the guys do a great job making an entertaining podcast. It contains artist interviews, reviews and just some good fun and conversation. Great for worship leaders.

Mars Hill Bible Church Podcast- Since hearing Rob Bell at a National Youth Workers Convention many years ago I have been challenged by what he has to say. Nice to be introduced to other great preachers from time to time.

Those are the podcasts that I started listening to but I know there are other great ones out there. So let me know! What do you listen to? Which ones inspire you, challenge you, or make you laugh?

Your Favorite Blackberry and Iphone Music Apps

For about a year the most searched for and viewed posts on my blog had to do with worship backgrounds. That was until I posted a list of my most useful iphone applications for musicians, along with a link to a friend’s post on iphone audio applications.

Since I wrote the apps for musicians post I know that many more applications have come out for the iphone, and you may have different favorites than me. I also know that there are a lot of you out there who use Blackberrys and use apps for them in your ministry.

So here is my question. What applications, for Blackberry and Iphone, do you use in your worship ministry and would recommend to others? List the name of the app and what platform it’s for in the comments below. If you have a link that would be great too.

My Daily Photo 8/20/09

Altar

Today’s photo was actually taken this past week when I led worship at St Marks UMC in Houston. It is of their chancel area.

How to Make a Slide Show Without a Computer?

photo (1)This past year I was introduced to Animoto, a service that takes your photos and turns them into a slide show. I really hadn’t done more than a few attempts at videos. However earlier Animoto released an app for the iphone. I began wondering if it would be possible use this app to create a slideshow of an event without ever using a computer. This last weekend I led a group of adults and Jr. High youth at a BIG HOUSE camp and I used the opportunity to try it out.
Each day I began by taking about 90-95 photos from morning till night. After that I selected the ones I wanted to use and uploaded them to the animoto app. After choosing my music I set it to render. It took between 5-15 minutes depending on my connection. I never had Wi-Fi but generally had the 3G network. Once the photos were uploaded and it began rendering I could close it out. Animoto sent me an email when my video was ready.

I ended up making one video per day including one the last day of camp. Usually we show our overall camp slide show on Saturday night, and then pack up on Sunday morning. Doing this completely using the iphone I was able to even take photos on Sunday morning, and on the drive home, (my wife was driving) I was able to upload and render the video.

Click here to see Saturday’s video.

One setback. Right now the videos created on the iphone do not show up on the web version. They say they are working on this and will have it fixed soon.

My Daily Photo 07/23/09


This past summer I spent 3 weeks leading worship at Lakeview Methodist Conference Center in Palestine Tx. I have done this for about 12 years now. This sign is in front of the camp where I started.
– Post From My iPhone

My Daily Photo-08/16/09

This photo is of the steeple at our church. I used photogene app to add some effects.