RussHutto.com

Photos Courtesy of Clarus Photography People Pictured wearing New Love In, Up, Out Tee Design

This past Sunday we unveiled our new “identity statement” at House of Joy. It was an exciting time.

Basically, back in January the staff went away for a few days and really spent hours answering this question: Who are we?

We didn’t invent some slogan to live up to. We didn’t create something out of thin air to try and project onto our people.

We thought and prayed, and laughed and debated and came together on an identity statement that reflected who we already are and what is important to us in ministry at HOJ.

Keith & Cortni: Worship Band Members

Love IN. Love Up. Love OUT.

Love in: We take care of each other. We meet in each others’ homes. We protect and nurture our own.

Love up: We love God with everything that we’ve got, heart, strength, soul, body, and mind. We teach others to do the same.

Love out: We love others as ourselves. We reach outside of our walls. We are community impacters, locally and globally.

Josh: Student Coordinator @ HOJ

It was a great day, and the kickoff of a new series.

The series was titled “From the Stroller to the Hog” – it was basically a series about growing up spiritually. Kind of the kickoff of our Love In process. We talked about how we start off in the stroller being pushed around and taken care of. Then we move to the tricycle and learn to move around a bit on our own. Then we hit the mountain bike and then we hit the Harley (hog). A neat four phase progression about growing through the stages of spiritual infancy to spiritually maturing.

We had intended to have the pastor riding the harley into our theater but alas, the doorway wasn’t big enough into the actual theater room where we meet. So we parked it right outside in the hallway as you go into the theater.

The Harley sitting at the entrance to our theater room. The Light coming in from the left is an exit to the outside of the theater. The theater room is actually right around to the right of the hog.

Though it wasn’t as loud and probably didn’t have the stick with you factor as riding it in, it was definitely a great visual to have it sitting in the entrance.

I don’t do this as much as I used to, but I would sit for hours on end and make little eletronic pieces. It was a blast.

Since I kind of hit a writers block due to travel, time, and lack of motivation the last 2 weeks, I figured I’d revisit my college days throwing together electronic stuffz.

It’s called In The Garage…only because I’m not clever. I made it in GarageBand.

Enjoy.

 

 In The Garage: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Yet another song in my 50 songs this year challenge.

Today I didn’t want to write. At all. So it felt more like an exercise back in college when my composition teacher’s would assign us something and we basically had to write it. Don’t get me wrong, once I got into it and started channeling the BeeGees I had a bunch of fun.

But ultimately this isn’t a song for worship, it isn’t gonna make me a songwriting legend, and odds are you probably won’t like it.

I will say this though, I actually do like it, and I think with the right artist, or band it has potential.

Oh and if anybody wonders why the verses don’t really rhyme…it’s because I just freestyled them. This is the rough beginnings of what could be a fun song.

Sorry for all the bg noise, I recorded again with the wrong headphones and straight into the onbaord mic of the MacBook Pro. One day I’ll actually have some equipment of my own. Until then I keep on writing.

So without further ado. Grab a glass of wine, throw a log on the fire, and put your arm around your hunny and let’s do this!

 

 I Love You: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is a song based on 1 Chronicles 16:34 and Psalm 57 (which I’ve also designed free wallpapers for).

 

 Your Love Never Fails: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Just a scratch recording…my “drums” metronome kind of bled over a little, sorry about that. Not using the right headphones this morning.

It’s kind of an acoustic guitar driven song, that can either be done as an uptempo song or a worshipful song. That ll depends on what groove your rhythm section lays down for it. It’s a very flexible song (at the same tempo).

Let me know if you like it and if you’d like to use it at your place!

So gang, I finished up my song this afternoon for the week. (my reporting over at stickk.com is actually on Thursday so this one will be reported on next week – I should have set my reporting day to be Monday, ugh).

Anyways this is somewhat of a rewrite. You see back in the day I was in a band called Blind Men See, we rocked it. We had a song called captivated that we just barely got to play right before we called it quits. I was always happy with the chorus, but the verses never did it for me.

So today in the middle of writing a totally brand new song this chorus started bouncing around in my head. I wrote a pre-chorus that leads write into it and tweaked the end of the chorus to be pseudo similar to the end of the verse.

The old song was called captivated. The new song started off being called You Are Here. What do YOU think I should call it?

The ideas for the song come from some poetry-esque stuff I had written in response to the Pure Praise study I’ve been going through.

Pardon my nasally singing, I’m sick but wanted to go ahead and get this one posted. I also added in some ideas for harmony.

 

 You Are Here (Captivated) [4:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lyrics and chords (capo 4):

Fmaj7                        C                  Em
So many times I have chosen the wide road again
Fmaj7                                    C                Em
Still knowing that path would lead me to sin
Fmaj7                              C           Em          D2sus(add3)
But You are waiting on the edge of heaven’s seat
Fmaj7     GsusG
Not far, but near
Em
You are here
F                    G      Em
Eyes full of fire, I’m your desire—–

Am                Fmaj7           C                Em
I am captivated by the burning in Your eyes
Am                    Fmaj7                 C                  D2sus(add3)
I can’t escape Your love it’s like fire burning inside
Fmaj7     D2sus(add3)
Not far, but near
Am7add9
You are here

Fmaj7                        C                  Em
So many times I have turned my heart away
Fmaj7                                C                  Em
Knowing my actions would spit in Your face
Fmaj7                                 C    Em          D2sus(add3)
Yet you’re still running to save me from me
Fmaj7                     GsusG
I don’t, understand it at all
Em
You are here
F                  G   Em
Eyes full of fire, I’m your desire

Am                Fmaj7           C                Em
I am captivated by the burning in Your eyes
Am                    Fmaj7                 C                  D2sus(add3)
I can’t escape Your love it’s like fire burning inside
Fmaj7     D2sus(add3)
Not far, but near
Am7add9
You are here

Also, there’s a few chords I’m not exactly sure how to spell out correctly. The D2sus(add3) is like a traditional C chord but slid up 2 frets. If you know the officially name let me know :)

Also, be sure to check out Mandy Thompson’s Guest Post on Songwriting. It’s really good :)