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Yesterday Today and Forever

June 21, 2008   Russell Martin   No comments

I have a cell phone phone. Yep. My phone came out over a year ago and I paid a good bit of money for it. I recently got an email from AT&T that said I could trade my old outdated phone in for a new phone as long as I signed another contract and paid $299 for the new one. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy having the latest technology as much as the next guy but for some reason this got to me. Seriously is my phone already out dated in only a year? You see this is only one example of things that are here today and gone tomorrow. Although technology is the worst almost anything you buy now is outdated well before you get it paid off. Buy a car.. it’s outdated. Buy an oven.. a cooler one will come out next year. Cause thats how they get you to buy another one is to create something bigger, better, faster, cooler, so you will throw away the old one and get the new one.

I am so glad that God isn’t like that. I am glad once I accept Christ, once I commit my life to Him and to following Him there is not something better coming along. God says He is the same yesterday, today and forever. No need for upgrades because He is already the ultimate, He has given us all He has and all He is.

I pray as you go about your week that you remember that God is always there and there is nothing better coming along later. You can commit to him because He will always be there and His love never changes.

This week I will be leading worship at our High School UM ARMY Camp in Atlanta Texas. Please pray for them and for the work that will be done both with the clients and within those participating.

As a side note you can now go to my website using the address, www.russellmartinmusic.com or www.russellmartinmusic.net. You can get to this worship website using the address www.forkintheroadmusic.org or www.forkintheroadmusic.blogspot.com

Have a great week.

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How To- Using Google Spreadsheet to Organize Song Lists

April 10, 2008   Russell Martin   No comments


We were looking for an easy, FREE, way to compile our worship library, keep track of how many times and when we used songs. We also wanted to keep information about each song like theme, key, tempo and what songs have just chords, or full arrangements etc. Finally we were looking for a way to do this so that different people could collaborate to keep the file updated. Our solution was a google documents spreadsheet.

In our sheet we list the songs that we use down the left hand side. The first section of column headers contain information like tempo, Cd, Track#, Key, Style etc. The second set of column headers contain the Sunday worship dates. When we add new songs we put as much information in as possible in the first set of columns. On a Sunday after we use a particular song we put a 1 by it in that Sunday’s date column.

This helps me in choosing songs because I can see how frequently we have used a song, and search for a song by specific criteria. We also added a column with some formulas that calculate how often a song has been done in the past year.

The beauty of using a Google spreadsheet is:

1. I do not have to do all of this myself. We have a few people who can access from home and help to update the sheet. They log on, make the changes, save and then we are good to go. I can see who made the changes and when they were made, and I am sent an email when this occurs.

2. We do not have a million copies of a spreadsheet floating around. Before we were using just an excel spreadsheet and emailing it back and forth. You can imagine how many variations were created over just a few months of this. Using the Google spreadsheet means it is all on one sheet. We can print off or download when needed but all the changes are made on the master document.

3. I can access our song lists wherever I am. If I am in a meeting with my iphone, or if I am out of town on a friends computer I can view, edit and save the list.

To create and edit Google docs you need to sign up for a free Google account.
You can share it so anyone can see it or invite only certain people to view.

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