Gary Haugen: Everyday Violence

By

Megan Briggs

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January 3, 2020

4 Money Mistakes Youth Pastors Make

By

Aaron Helman

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January 3, 2020

You love working with students and despise working with money. That’s why you’re a youth minister and not an investment banker. But you also know the fastest way to lose your job is to mismanage your church’s money. You’re doing the best job you can with the funds you’ve been given, but it’s easy to mess up without even thinking about it. These are the four most common money mistakes I see when I help youth workers manage their budgets:

1. Paying sales tax sometimes or all of the time. Depending on your state, as much as 7 percent of your budget could go to sales taxes if you’re not careful. It takes just a little bit of work on the front end to figure out tax-exempt systems, but after that, it’s a no-brainer to make sure you don’t pay what you don’t have to pay.

2. Being too optimistic when paying deposits or buying tickets. I know, it would be awesome if 80 students showed up for the Switchfoot concert, but if that’s never happened before, you can’t count on it. Don’t get stuck with 40 extra tickets—that’s like setting $1,200 on fire.

3. Failing to negotiate totally negotiable prices. Imagine you ran a retreat center that was running far below capacity during the off-season. Would you rather rent your space at discounted price or not rent it at all? Can you imagine how many fundraisers you could cut if you asked for and received a 20 percent discount on your next big rental?

4. Focusing on saving pennies instead of making a few big wins. I know a guy who would call his volunteers to ask them to cut pizza coupons from the Sunday paper. It saved him a few dollars, but he would have saved hundreds of dollars and hours of time if he’d just called the pizza place and asked for a church, nonprofit or large group discount.

Now it’s your chance to be the teacher. What is one of the money mistakes you’ve made? How did you fix it?

Diverse Leaders Offer Solution of Amicable United Methodist Split

By

Jessica Lea

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January 3, 2020

Sixteen leaders within the embattled United Methodist Church (UMC) have released a proposal that essentially offers a United Methodist split as a solution to the church’s internal dispute over marriage and gender issues. One reason the proposal is distinctive is because of the influence and diversity among those who signed it.

“We humbly offer to the delegates of the 2020 General Conference the work which we have accomplished in the hopes that it will help heal the harms and conflicts within the body of Christ and free us to be more effective witnesses to God’s Kingdom,” said Bishop John Yambasu of Sierra Leone, according to United Methodist News (UMN). Yambasu was instrumental in initiating the proposal, which was also worked on by well-known mediator Kenneth Feinberg.

“I believe this is a fair and equitable solution that puts decades of conflict behind us and gives us a hopeful future,” said Bishop Thomas Bickerton of the New York Conference. “It became clear that the line in the sand had turned into a canyon. The impasse is such that we have come to the realization that we just can’t stay that way any longer.”

An Amicable United Methodist Split As a Solution

The “canyon” Bickerton was referring to has to do with the Special Session of the General Conference that took place last February, during which the UMC voted on its stance on marriage and same-sex relationships.

Delegates had to choose between two plans. One was called the “Traditional Plan,” which upheld a view of marriage as being between one man and one woman and put restrictions on LGBTQ members who wished to be clergy. The other was called the “One Church Plan,” and it allowed particular churches to come to their own conclusions about gay marriage and LGBTQ clergy. The decision was highly divisive, with 449 voting against the One Church Plan and 374 voting in favor of it. Controversy also surrounded the outcome when The New York Times reported that some of the delegates who participated in the UMC vote were not authorized to do so.

Fallout has continued since that vote. Some UMC colleges have decided to leave the denomination or at least to evaluate their relationship with the UMC. In July, seven Mississippi churches did decide to leave the United Methodist Church. One left, not because it disagreed with the UMC’s vote, but because the members felt the denomination was sidetracked by a debate that should not be taking place to begin with. Last November, five bishops in the UMC’s Western Jurisdiction refused outright to follow the Traditional Plan. Around that same time, leaders with the Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA), who support the Traditional Plan, expressed that they were preparing to break from the UMC and to form a new, traditionalist denomination.

Now another step has been taken in the direction of a United Methodist split. According to UMN, a “diverse, 16-member group of United Methodist bishops and other leaders” has published a nine-page document called “Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation.” The proposal outlines the terms under which churches may amicably leave the UMC. A congregation that wishes to separate would get $25 million and get to keep its property. At the same time, says UMN, the proposal anticipates “ecumenical agreements and cooperation on some fronts.”

UMN notes that this proposal for a United Methodist split would only take effect once approved by the 2020 General Conference, which is to take place this May. However, there is potential for the proposal to have significant sway because of the diversity of the parties involved in it, “including bishops from around the global connection and advocacy group leaders often sharply at odds.” These parties include Rev. Keith Boyette, who is the WCA president, and Jan Lawrence, who is the executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network and who identifies as LGBTQ.

Because leaders from opposing viewpoints have cooperated to achieve this agreement, UMN says “the potential seems strong that the separation proposal can end or at least greatly reduce the denomination’s decades-long struggle over how accepting to be of homosexuality.”

Said Boyette, “I believe this is a fair and equitable solution that puts decades of conflict behind us and gives us a hopeful future.”

U.S. Condemns Chinese Pastor Wang Yi’s Lengthy Sentence

By

Stephanie Martin

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January 3, 2020

News of Chinese pastor Wang Yi and his secret trial and nine-year prison sentence continues to spark outcry from world leaders and religious-liberty advocates. Wang, the outspoken founder of one of China’s largest underground Christian churches, has been detained since a December 2018 raid. The pastor refused to register his 500-member Early Rain Covenant Church with the government, a requirement the Chinese Communist Party put in place to try to control religious practices.

Although China’s constitution guarantees “freedom of religious beliefs” for “normal religious activities,” oppression and arrests have been escalating against Christians under President Xi Jinping. Western influence is being removed from Bibles, churchgoers are being tracked and turned in, and crosses and church buildings are being destroyed.

Secretary of State: End the ‘intensifying oppression’

After Wang was convicted for “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business activities,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted: “I am alarmed that Pastor Wang Yi, leader of Chengdu’s Early Rain house church, was tried in secret and sentenced to nine years in prison on trumped-up charges. Beijing must release him and end its intensifying repression of Christians and members of all other religious groups.”

In a statement, the State Department calls the charges against Wang “trumped-up” and demands his “immediate and unconditional release.” It notes: “This is yet another example of Beijing’s intensification of repression of Chinese Christians and members of other religious groups. We continue to call on Beijing to uphold its international commitments and promises made in its own constitution to promote religious freedom for all individuals, including members of ethnic and religious minorities and those who worship outside of official state-sanctioned institutions.”

Peter Stano, spokesman for the European Union, echoes those sentiments, tweeting: “The EU is concerned about restrictions on freedom of religion & belief in China and calls for immediate release of Pastor Wang Yi who was tried in secret & sentenced to 9 years in prison in connection to his peaceful advocacy for #FreedomOfReligion.”

Amnesty International also has publicized the case, calling Wang “a prisoner of conscience” and his sentence “appalling and unjust.” The goal of Chinese leaders, says Amnesty researcher Patrick Poon, is “to force all churches to register with the officially-sanctioned church so that they can be completely under government control.”

Christianity’s Growth Threatens Beijing, Say Experts

Scholars say Christianity has been growing rapidly in China, especially in rural areas, and they point to Wang’s sentence as one more sign that such growth is making the government nervous.

Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Center for China Studies, says underground (or house) churches are “spreading like wildfire” in rural parts of the country. Government officials, he tells Time magazine, “are afraid that more people, including less educated people, are turning to the church for their spiritual needs and not to official nationalism and patriotism.”

Purdue University sociology professor Fenggang Yang, director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society, predicts that China will have more than 247 million Christians, the most of any country in the world, by the year 2030. According to current estimates, mainland China currently has about 116 million Protestant Christians—compared to about 90 million members of the Communist Party.

In China, Christians are mostly Protestant. The government officially recognizes Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam, but reports of cultural genocide and systemic oppression have been emerging throughout the country. For example, millions of Uighurs (a Muslim minority people) are being sent to re-education camps in China.

Pastor Wang’s lengthy sentence is being regarded as an example and a warning to other church leaders. In addition to nine years in prison, the pastor is being “stripped of political rights” for three years and had about $7,200 worth of assets seized. Many Early Rain members remain under police surveillance, and in November a church elder was sentenced to four years in prison.

Wang, also a lawyer and constitutional scholar, converted to Christianity in 2005. He has blogged extensively about freedom of conscience, calling the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology “morally incompatible with the Christian faith.” In 2006, Wang met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss religious freedom in China.

Pressure on Christians Is Intensifying, Faith Leaders Warn

On the latest World Watch List from Open Doors, China ranks 27^th for its persecution of Christians. Open Doors CEO David Curry warns that China will continue trying to transform churches into “a Chinese church, not a church of Jesus.”

Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, says the “grave sentence” given to Wang proves that Chinese leaders are “the enemy of universal values and religious freedom.”

Sang Pu, a commentator in Hong Kong, tells VOA News Wan is “a martyr” and his imprisonment may have a “chilling effect” on some Christians. “But those who really are fighting hard for their own faith, for their own religion, will not bend,” Sang adds, saying some worshipers are finding innovative ways to meet in secret.

In an editorial, the Washington Post calls Pastor Wang “a paragon of the noble aspiration that people be allowed to think, speak, worship and assemble freely.” It concludes that “China ought to have more faith in people’s faith.”

On Facebook, which is banned in China, Wang’s supporters continue to proclaim his innocence and encourage fellow Christians to persevere “despite repeated setbacks.” Before his arrest, Wang wrote a lengthy statement, saying his “disobedience is part of the gospel mission.”

Though the pastor says he’s “full of disgust and hatred for the [Communist Party’s] persecution of the church,” he writes that his purpose isn’t to change social and political systems. Instead, he aims to help “more Chinese understand that the hope of mankind and society lies only in the redemption of Christ, in the supernatural grace of God.”

Wang insists his loyalty lies only with God: “He is my king and…I am his servant,” he writes. “I will resist in meekness those who resist God, and I will joyfully violate all laws that violate God’s laws.” Wang adds: “I am very happy to obey God’s arrangement, because his arrangement is always loving and beautiful.”

Church Building Micro Home Village for Homeless

By

Joey Butler

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January 3, 2020

Can you imagine being released from the hospital after surgery and having nowhere to go to recover but a park bench?

That question is what led Glencliff United Methodist Church to envision a micro home village where homeless residents could recover. The congregation is dedicating a section of its grounds to construct a mix of 200-square-foot single homes and 400-square-foot homes for two people. Twelve of the planned 22 homes are currently under construction.

“A lot of our folks have open-heart surgery, hip replacement, chemo or radiation they’re going through, and they’re just told to go back to their camp or wherever it is that they stay. That’s not a good place for healing,” said the Rev. Ingrid McIntyre, executive director of the project and one of the pastors at Glencliff.

“This will provide community for people as well as safe space to heal.”

Carpenters work on details of one of the micro houses. Photo by Kathleen Barry, UM News.

McIntyre said the vision is almost a decade in the making. A massive flood that struck Nashville in 2010 displaced many of the city’s homeless from a large encampment on the banks of the Cumberland River known as Tent City.

“We thought, what can we do?” she said. “We need a place where people can come and have community. These folks were getting pushed out of theirs.”

McIntyre, whose appointment is quarter-time to Glencliff and “the rest of the time to the streets,” helped found Open Table Nashville, a nonprofit advocating for the homeless. In 2016, the church voted to partner with Open Table Nashville to house the micro home village.

Valerie Stringer, Glencliff’s chair of trustees, said the congregation was almost unanimous in its support.

“It’s a super concept. What wouldn’t you like about helping someone who really needs it?” she said.

The project has had a few challenges, like an expensive water system upgrade to comply with city regulations.

One unexpected challenge was a lawsuit filed by members of the surrounding neighborhood concerned about the church’s plans. The church won the initial suit but had to continue defending it through several appeals. Ultimately, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the suit on the grounds that housing the homeless falls under a federal law that protects a church’s mission as a religious organization.

“Every faith community I know of, Christian or not, takes care of people in need,” McIntyre said. “That’s part of our creed—any faith tradition’s creed. It’s in our Social Principles, it’s in Luke.”

Even the lawsuit provided an opportunity for healing. When the woman who initiated the suit—whose stepfather is a Glencliff member—showed up at a church dinner, she and McIntyre were able to connect and forge a relationship.

“I guess she thought we were so mad at her that she wouldn’t be welcome, but that’s just not how church works for me,” McIntyre said.

Though $400,000 of the projected $1.3 million budget still needs to be raised, McIntyre hopes to formally open the village by the end of May. Construction is on schedule, but staffing positions need to be filled and programming must be designed. The programs are intended to provide community and human connection—another important part of healing that the homeless often lack. She also hopes to convert part of the church grounds into a walking trail for exercise.

Residents will have access to medical teams for on-site care, and there are plans to contract with online medical practitioners so many of the residents’ issues could be addressed without them having to travel in between on-site visits.

Since the project is considered “bridge” housing, there is no maximum length of stay. McIntyre and the church are committed to housing residents until they regain their health and have a permanent place to live.

“You’re not stopping the cycle if you don’t go all the way to permanent housing,” she said.

McIntyre said other churches have expressed interest in doing their own micro home villages, citing a recent partnership with a United Methodist church in Pensacola, Florida, that wants to build 12 micro homes.

“We’re figuring it out step by step, but I’d love to be able to share it with other people around the country—any church that has an extra acre,” she said.

“We know we’re putting our faith into action, standing up for issues of injustice. We have seen people live through the most inconceivable experiences and want to be part of the healing.”

This article originally appeared on UMNews.org. Used with permission.

200+ Congress Members File Brief Questioning ‘right to abortion’

By

Jessica Lea

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January 3, 2020

On Thursday, 207 Congress members filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in relation to the case, June Medical Services LLC v. Gee. The brief requested that the court uphold a law in Louisiana requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Lawmakers also asked the court to consider overturning Roe v Wade, the landmark case that guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion.

Thirty-nine senators and 168 members of the House signed the brief, which states that June Medical Services LLC v. Gee “illustrates the unworkability of the ‘right to abortion’ found in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and the need for the Court to again take up the issue of whether Roe and Casey should be reconsidered and, if appropriate, overruled.”

**Lawmakers Say Roe v Wade Is ‘unworkable’**

According to CBS News, in 2014 a Louisiana law was passed that required doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles of where they provide an abortion. Abortion provider June Medical Services challenged the law (which is not currently active), and the Supreme Court will hear the case this spring.

Those who signed the brief (mostly Republicans) claim that, “Like abortion facilities in many States, Louisiana abortion clinics—including June Medical—have a long history of health and safety violations, and Louisiana abortion doctors have a long history of professional disciplinary actions and substandard medical care.” The Congress members also believe that abortion providers have “an inherent conflict of interest” when it comes to state health and safety regulations.

This particular case, lawmakers concluded, demonstrates the limitations of Roe v Wade and therefore the need for the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe, as well as the case, Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v Casey, and potentially overturn both.

A brief opposing the Louisiana law was filed last month by 197 members of Congress, mostly Democrats.

CBS says that if the disputed law is upheld, it would result in the closure of all of Louisiana’s abortion clinics.

Abortions Were the Leading Cause of Death in 2019

The news about the amicus brief comes as Worldometers has reported that abortions were the leading cause of death globally in 2019, with over 42.3 million people killed.

Worldometers is an independent company run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers that provides world statics in a real-time format. The site calculates its abortion numbers based on the statistics released by the World Health Organization.

Worldometers’ definition of abortion is as follows:

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced. (definition from Wikipedia) Abortion as a term most commonly—and in the statistics presented here—refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy, while spontaneous abortions are usually termed miscarriages.

Abortions were also the number one cause of death in the world last year, but the numbers are up from 2018’s 41.9 million abortions. The next leading cause of death in 2019 was communicable diseases at over 12.9 million, cancer at over 8.2 million, and smoking at over 4.9 million.

Decision magazine reports an estimated one million abortions take place in the United States every year and that Planned Parenthood is responsible for about a third of those. Approximately 61 million children have died in the U.S. because of legal abortion since the passing of Roe v Wade.

TouchPoint Software Is Flexible, User-Friendly Church Management Software

By

TouchPoint

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January 3, 2020

TouchPoint is a powerful cloud-based church management system that equips leaders to grow fully devoted followers of Christ. TouchPoint is designed for mid-to-large churches looking for a ChMS solution that is off-the-shelf AND customizable. Our best-in-class fully-integrated mobile app helps you with contact records, membership management, volunteer management, child check-in, discipleship groups, ministry engagement, contributions, events, media, and more.

TRAINING: To help limit costs to you, we offer remote webinar-style online training. We can also come on-site to have a more personalized training — which is optimal for churches with a larger staff. We also offer extensive online documentation and on-demand training videos to ensure you can find the answers you need any time. And if you still get stuck, our support consistently beats industry standards in terms of response times and satisfaction.

DATA CONVERSION: Worried about the conversion process? TouchPoint developers will work with you to get your existing data into your new database with minimal loss.

MOBILE APP: TouchPoint currently offers the only church app that lets you manage and communicate with your congregation in a unified, compelling experience.

Members can update their profile, register for events, see giving statements, update their communications preferences, find a small group, and more! Communications staff love the ability to schedule sliding banners that announce important news to your congregation. Pull in media audio/video feeds from wherever they are hosted (YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, Apple podcasts, etc.). Give your staff and lay leaders powerful ministry tools. You can even design the app to match your church’s branding.

Man Up, Christian Men!

By

Rut Etheridge III

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January 3, 2020

It’s time to man up, Christian men!

I hope to engage this matter further in a subsequent post when time allows, but I’ve been deeply disheartened of late by the online antics of some Christian men, including some office bearers in the church. These brothers have reacted reprehensibly to recent books by sisters in Christ who have the courage to raise questions about the biblical integrity of particular conceptions of manhood and womanhood popular and popularized among conservative evangelicals in general and the Reformed community specifically. And yes, it takes courage to raise such questions publicly. Look no further for evidence than the condescending and sometimes just crass comments that have erupted against them via social media, sometimes from men who haven’t even read their books, and from some published critiques. I’m thinking of responses to books by Aimee Byrd and more recently, Rachel Green Miller.

Not content to let these works stand on their own to receive the scholarly scrutiny to which any published work is subject, some of our brothers have subjected these sisters – who operate firmly within a Reformed and even Westminsterian framework, no less! – to ad hominem attacks ad nauseam. The insults range from passive-aggressive in the more formal critiques to just plain aggressive in the comments sections of social media pages. Sometimes the latter features sheer, blatant mockery of women in general and of these women in particular.

Misogynist bloviations meet bawdy applause among men who are ostensibly championing real manhood over and against the “liberal” “garbage” anthropology which they slanderously claim these new books posit. (If the irony of their behavior is lost on them or anyone else, it suggests all the more forcefully our need for such books). It’s gotten so bad that Pastor Todd Pruitt, host along with Aimee Byrd and Carl Trueman of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals‘ “Mortification of Spin” podcast, recently threw together some pertinent thoughts on the subject at the MOS blog site.

Links to any of the above are easy to find. I’m not providing them here – sorry! My primary purpose in this post is to call us out of the fray for a bit. I’m going to link instead to one of the finest sermons I’ve ever heard broaching the topic of biblically-defined masculinity. Full disclosure: It’s been over a decade since I’ve listened to it in full! But that only bespeaks its enduring quality; and time and memory lapse notwithstanding, I’m happy to pass it along for your consideration and edification because it comes from one of the finest Christian men I know, someone as conservative and kindhearted as they come: Dr. C.J. Williams of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Have a listen.

In tone alone, let alone content, this sermon is a refreshing, unintentional yet no less applicable rejoinder to the aforementioned vile, unmanly, dehumanizing tendencies against which each of us men, especially office bearers in the church, need to pray with regard to our hearts and to the words we speak or publish as the outflow of their abundance.

May we commit to thinking deeply about our faith and to asking good questions which, like those being raised by Aimee and Rachel, aim to drive us back to and deeper within the Scriptures.

May we hear such questions respectfully, honestly, and then search the Scriptures thoroughly.

May we have the integrity to apologize to people we’ve publicly slandered, and may the Lord protect our hearts from hidden sins (Psalm 19).

May we be willing to purge our faith from unbiblical cultural accretions, no matter what the cost to our social status among friends and peer groups that (perhaps unknowingly) prize them.

May we demonstrate a humble willingness to be corrected and not a stubborn will to be correct at the cost of Christlike character.

After all, aren’t we in the Reformed community supposed to be all about Semper Reformanda? And aren’t we men who bear office in the church supposed to lead by example?

This article originally appeared here.

What It’s Like to Be a Single Missionary

By

Bethany DuVal

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January 2, 2020

She’s known as the MacGyver of missionaries. She spent 15 years traveling with nomadic cattle-herders, single-handedly wired her desert home with solar panels, and still has her water delivered by donkeys.

But Tillie Tiller’s adventurous life in Chad slammed into a wall when she turned 39.

That’s when she realized she wasn’t getting married.

“In so many missionary biographies, in the middle of nowhere, a single guy shows up, and it is a perfect pairing. … Up until age 38, I thought it was going to happen,” Tillie says. “At age 39, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t happen, so then I started to spiral out of control. I didn’t even realize what was going on.”

As Tillie’s sending agency, TEAM, called her off the field. She would spend the next year in counseling, figuring out who she was without the possibility of a spouse and children.

For many prospective missionaries, Tillie’s breakdown is their worst nightmare.

Singleness is the fourth most common reason appointees don’t make it to the mission field or take a long time getting there, according to a Pioneers International report. And truthfully, fears of loneliness, feeling out of place or saying goodbye to the possibility of marriage aren’t entirely unfounded.

Even when she was raising support to serve in France, TEAM missionary Jenn Hylton thought, This would be so much easier if I weren’t alone, if I just had someone to help me.

But despite the challenges, some estimate that single people make up a third of the U.S. missions force.

So how do single missionaries make it work? It begins with recognizing the benefits.

Open Houses and Divine Surprises

Ask any missionary about the advantages of being single on the field, and they’ll talk about flexibility.

“I can do so much more spontaneous ministry,” says Taylor Nesse, who works with college students in Italy. “[If] someone texts me, nine times out of 10, I’ll be able to show up. I love that.”

Without a family to worry about infringing on, Taylor feels free to open his home, hosting large group meals throughout each semester. On the flipside, flying solo makes people feel more comfortable inviting you to their own homes, according to 35-year missionary Nancy Sturrock.

In South Asia, she says, “They have these small, little houses, and they’re not sure if they have enough food, and they don’t really know what to do for a foreigner. But one person, they can manage.”

Zach Harrod has been married nearly three years, but he’s still reaping benefits from nine years of single service in the Czech Republic.

“As a single, it was just like, heck, let’s get after it. … I grew, God helped me get the language, helped me get a ton of relationships with it. I’m still kind of riding the wave of that,” Zach says.

But sometimes, the greatest benefit to singleness is seeing God work in unexpected ways.

Lorraine Green went to Chad at 27 years old to do youth ministry, but she quickly saw that it wasn’t for her.

Instead, she ended up working with the local Bible school, teaching women how to be good pastors’ wives.

The irony wasn’t lost on Lorraine. But when she shared her concerns with a local pastor he said, “Don’t talk like that. You teach God’s Word. You teach the principles of God’s Word, and the rest will work out.”

So she did—for 30 years. All the while, not a single student ever doubted her qualifications. God’s Word was enough.

4 Great Joys That Come From Being Honest With God

By

Josh Weidmann

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January 2, 2020

The last shepherd to return from gathering firewood dropped a meager load of sticks on the ground beside the sputtering fire. He looked at his partners huddled close to the feeble flame and knew they faced another long, cold night ahead. Drawing his cloak tighter around his shoulders, he gazed upward at the deep and mysterious sky. The moon had already set, leaving behind stars so brilliant the young man felt he could brush them with his hands and watch them fall like apple blossoms in his father’s orchard back home.

‘Home’ was a bittersweet word to him after so many months away with the flock. He slept on the ground, ate cold food most of the time, and—above all—spent day and night watching over the most stubborn and seemingly stupid creatures God ever made. Surely he could expect more from his life than this? He’d heard David’s writing in the synagogue: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul” (Psalm 23:1-3). “Beautiful words,” the shepherd thought, “but when will they come true for me?”

He stretched his aching muscles one last time, bid his fellows goodnight and lay down on the frigid ground. Perhaps in his dreams he’d find the promised land of God’s blessing which seemed so elusive in the light of day.

“What is that?” one of the other shepherds said. “Do you see that?”

In irritation, the shepherd rolled over for a look, expecting to see the men searching the shadows for some phantom threat to the sheep. Instead, they all sat gazing upward into the sky.

“It’s coming closer,” another said. “What is that?”

As the shepherd sat up, the hilltop suddenly burst into light—more luminous and warming than the brightest day he’d ever seen. Strangely, the light didn’t hurt his eyes. He scrambled to his feet to join his friends, and they clung to each other, terrified. Suddenly a man stood before them, as radiant and pure as the light surrounding him.

Start Recording – What You REALLY Need

By

Caleb Neff

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January 2, 2020

“I think I’m just gonna start recording some stuff.”

I said these words in the winter of 2005. I bought a $499 “Recording starter kit:” with a microphone, headphones, interface, and probably one of those acoustic foam mic shields that doesn’t do anything. All in one kit! I was ready to go!

“How hard can it be?” I thought. I had never been to a session in a recording studio. I had never run live sound, didn’t know the basic functions of a mixer, and wasn’t very computer literate. The extent of my producer knowledge was to point the microphone in the direction of the noise. (I had seen that in movies.)

But something about those late nights of layering sounds (after the initial late-late nights of Googling “Why don’t I have any sound”) hooked me. So here I am 15 years later, still obsessed with doing something half as good as the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.

I’ve created this “proper” kit to start recording in order to help you save money, but more importantly, time. Because if you’re not careful you’ll spend more time on forums and futzing around trying to figure out your gear than actually making music.

**Here’s What You Really Need:**

1.) A “good enough” computer

To start recording you need RAM, and lots of it. When you look at a software program and it says 16GB recommended, do that. If you can upgrade what’s in your computer, do that. A good SSD (which can be internal or external) will give you a place to put all those gigabytes of sound you’re making.

2.) A DAW (digital audio workstation)

This is the program you are going to record into and mix from. It doesn’t need to be Pro Tools (the most famous one) but Pro Tools is fine, and it probably shouldn’t be a free or “LE” version of anything because they are feature limited. The easiest to learn full-featured programs seem to be Logic, Studio One, and, if you’re into more electronic music and loops and stuff, Ableton.

3.) An interface

You plug all your mics and direct signals into this and it turns that sound into digital information that your computer can read and play back. You need as many inputs as you plan on recording at the same time. Unless you’re gonna be recording acoustic drums, 2 microphone inputs (like this one) is probably good. (Also, if you read some nerdy stuff somewhere about converters, ignore it. No one makes bad converters anymore, so unless you’re opening a commercial mastering facility, you’re fine.)

4.) Monitors/ Headphones

You need headphones to wear while recording so you can hear what you’re playing along with, and monitors to listen back in your room. You’re probably (like most of us) working in a less than ideal acoustic environment, so here’s the trick: you want decent small monitors (with no subwoofer) and great headphones. Your headphones are immune to the acoustics of your room, so listening back and forth between them and your monitors will be a helpful way to get a decent grip on what you’re doing. I don’t recommend a subwoofer when you’re starting out because they tend to exacerbate acoustic issues in small rooms.

As you move forward and start recording, taming the acoustics of your space is crucial, but I’m not going to spend time on it because I know it’s not very exciting and let’s be honest, you want to buy a big shiny microphone.

5.) Microphones

Microphones are the ears that actually capture your sounds; they are the most crucial piece of gear in the chain. There’s so much hype and heavy breathing about all the magic components of modern recording (we haven’t even mentioned plug-ins) that we lose focus on the simple fact that whatever the mic hears, and how it hears it, is your record. You can smash and mangle it downstream, but the raw material delivered by the microphone you chose is what you have to work with.

With all that setup, if I just said: here’s the mic you should get I would be doing you no favors. There are hundreds of forums and articles listing thousands of microphones that are “The Greatest”, using words like smooth, buttery, and even “creamy.” Have you noticed the greatest mic tends to be whatever that person currently owns?

The truth is: I don’t know what style of music you like, what you want to start recording, what kind of voice you have, what space you have, or 100 other things that affect your decision, but don’t worry, I know exactly what you should do.

audiotestkitchen.com is possibly the greatest practical resource to ever come along to the recording community. It’s not just the whole idea that you can actually hear what microphones sound like – in a way that makes logical and scientific sense – the ear training that’s going to happen as a natural byproduct of your ATK mic selection process is actually going to make you a better engineer right out of the gate.

No one knows what a creamy microphone is: did you dunk it in ranch dressing? At least now, if you think you need a U87, that feeling is based on something more substantive than seeing it in a music video.

Remember, when you start recording the whole idea is to have fun and create. Don’t spend half your creative energy wishing you had different gear or searching the dark web for the trick that’s going to unlock everything. Make music, and enjoy the process.

Caleb Neff is a producer, pastor, songwriter, worship leader, husband, and dad from Cape Coral, Florida. His passion is helping artists both inside and outside the church develop their full creative potential. Check out his website.

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