Sponsor a Child in Jesus Name with Compassion
Archive - blogging/networking RSS Feed

Third Day Shaped Me

When I was a teenager back in the late 90s, I was shaped by Third Day.

I didn’t tour with them, work as a roady for them, or even know them personally.

However, as a kid growing up in a home that was primarily filled with God-centered music, Third Day was always in my CD player. Their first self-titled album really inspired me. I actually learned to play guitar as a senior so I could sing songs like Love Song and Consuming Fire in church. Oh, I was already a fine musician (played piano, drums, and trumpet) but I just had never learned guitar. Third Day kind of stormed on to the scene with an in your face kind of Southern Rock that I could relate to, being a kid who grew up in Georgia myself. (Still live here by the way!)

To the guys in Third Day, thanks.

Now over a decade later I’m who I am musically as a worship leader and artist because of great songs like Thief, Praise Song, and Take My Life. I played a cafe back in December and covered Love Song. Timeless. Love that album!! Of course the Offerings albums offered great motivation and inspiration as well.

To this day Consuming Fire is my favorite song. You guys are probably sick of it. But I’ll never forget the first time I saw you guys go from an acoustic set to the full-blown set right in the middle of that song. That’s probably one of my top 3 live show moments ever!

Part of 3rd Day on Third Day

Happy Birthday Chia, Real Impact, and Remixing Worship Tunes

Billy Chia is 30. Wish him a good one.

Need inspiration to get motivated to really love people like God does? Here’s a story of people stepping outside of their self to make an impact on people that society would deem unlovables. (ht: Mike)

Last night we remixed 2 of our “regular” worship tunes for this Sunday. Ya know the kind of song I’m talking about. Everyone in the congregation loves it, but the worship team is getting a little tired of the same ol, same ol.

We’ve been doing Not Forgotten (Houghton/Lindsey) for over 2 years (at least) and it’s getting kind of stale. We made some minor adjustments to the way we play it (keeping the same overall style) and it just seems a whole lot more fresh. We took the original “I am not forgotten, Never forsaken” bridge and turned it into a funky, string oriented Bittersweet Symphony-esque groove that builds to the “Whoah-oh-oh-oooh” part before getting back in to the chorus again.

We’ve also been doing I Am Free (Egan) for a while similar to the newsboys arrangement. Last night we decided to take it more into the U2/Coldplay realm and it ws the hottness. The team loved it, and I think the arrangement (though structurally the same) will be a breath of fresh air for the congregation.

I’ll post how it goes on Sunday.

Why I Blog [Revisited]

With the new year comes a fresh start, even though technically most, if not all of us, are the exact same people on January 1 that we were at 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve. There’s something about celebrating this holiday that puts us in the mindset of wiping the slate and starting clean.

That said, I’ve been thinking about my blogging journey for the last few days. I knew I wanted to do something “new” and fresh with russhutto.com in 09 but I want it to be so much more than a theme change or adding a new “blog series.”

So instead of kicking off a new series called “Calorie Counting Wednesday” or “To Do List Tuesday” for the new year, I’m just gonna be me. Oh it’s definitely gonna get a little more focused around here, but a more focused me. I’ve seen blogs come and go. I’ve even had a few of my own that ended up on the heap over the last 5 or 6 years.

So, right here and right now, in 09, I’m asking myself again, “Why Do I Blog?” Last year, around this same time, I wrote a series of posts about blogging. I’ve been going through them this morning and predictably my reasons are basically the same!

But honestly, I think the MAIN reason I blog is you. I love connection. I love the friendships I’ve made on this blog journey. Some of you I’ll never meet face to face in this life, but I feel an authentic community through blogging.

I know that Papa is always praying for people.

I know that Brent & Tam are raising Godly kids (setting a great example for me in the future).

I know Mandy is pursuing her dreams in songwriting.

I know Fred is running a great ebiz and leading a dynamic team at SSCC.

I know Johnny, Mike, and Joel are passionately engaging people with music for worship.

And of course there’s others. And those one liners don’t sum up all of who you are and what you blog about, but those are things that I love about your blog journey.

These things, these facets of your lives are the biggest reasons why I blog. Of course, I can’t write about those things in your life like you can, so I write my own story, but I think the wonderful thing about being alive today and having access to such technology is the weaving of the individual threads of our personal stories into one big tapestry, a masterpiece directed and orchestrated by God Himself.

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. (Romans 12:4-6 MSG)

Wait What Happened to RussHutto.com?

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope your holiday celebrations were filled with cheer and blessing.

You might have noticed that there’s a new look and vibe here at russhutto.com. After much soul searching and refocusing of my blogging journey, I decided to simplify my focus. I was having a GREAT time playing with themes and really playing with the magazine style themes, when I decided that having so much stuff going on at one time was really killing my ability to be a focused blogger.

With 09 comes a desire to really offer a bit more in the way of music, church leadership insights, graphic design inspiration, worship leadership insights, etc. I think to do that I need to refocus my efforts. With that came a need to refocus my blog.

So, voila! A new focus, a new year, a new blog look.

Whether you hate it or love it, I hope the CONTENT of this blog gets beter for you and creates better opportunities for us to connect in community.

Year End Review 2008 at RussHutto.com

For those who like this sort of thing, here’s my stats at russhutto.com

I’m not much driven by stats, though I do enjoy watching the trends.

Top Posts of 2008:

  1. Acoustic Washtub Bass [Phase 2]
  2. Wearing Sunglasses In Worship: To Do or
  3. Acoustic Washtub Bass [Phase 1]
  4. Proposed Bail Out for Unhip Worship Team
  5. Wired Mag’s 10 Inconvenient Truths

Top Referrers of 2008:

  1. Twitter (twitter.com/russhutto)
  2. fredmckinnon.com/myblog (thanks Fred!)
  3. Church Marketing Sucks Pool @ Flickr (a discussion about my orange office) flickr.com/groups/cfcc/discuss/721576…
  4. kassota.wordpress.com (thanks Tam)
  5. The Dashboard at WP
  6. johnnysierra.blogspot.com (thanks Johnny!)

I’ll admit I’ve had a few whopper posts, but for the most part I’ve not had any mind blowing stats. The referrals I do get here mean so much to me, so if you’re on that list I appreciate it more than you know!

Top Search Terms for russhutto.com in 2008:

  1. washtub bass
  2. russ hutto
  3. itunes shuffle game
  4. urban cities (?? no clue about that one)
  5. wash tub bass
  6. upright washtub bass
  7. itunes shuffle games
  8. russ hutto blog
  9. national worship leader conference
  10. 4 string wash tub basss

Now, call me crazy but I think I might have something with the wash tub bass thing. I think I should become a dealer or something.

It’s been a fun year. Going into 09 I’ve decided to focus my blogging efforts a bit more. Although, I’ve had a really fun year posting a ton of random stuff, I think my readers and potential readers could benefit a bit more from a focused russhutto.com and not necessarily just a “random look at the life of” russhutto.com. That being said, I’ll continue to post random stuff, but I’m trying to become more consistent with my worship/media contributions and hopefully we’ll all benefit from what I’ve learned and continue to learn on this journey.

Thanks 2008 you were a great year! And a BIG thanks to all who journeyed with me this year.

Have a free wallpaper on me!

Page 9 of 10« First...«678910»
Content

Contact me

Verify

Script by Dagon Design