I want to invite you to come serve with us on Saturday, June 2^nd at 8:30am at City Link.

Here’s Why:

I know for myself I get so used to being on stage and seeing mass groups of people that I forget they are individuals that walk in the door with a wide range of life circumstances.  Some have cancer or marriage problems.  Others may be living in their car and struggling financially.  I spoke to man last week that has been looking for work for four years.  I know for me it is easy to lead worship and wonder why people are not engaging in worship, but once you start to meet the individuals their reality comes into perspective.  So, I would like us all to have the opportunity to come off the stage and minister one on one to the people we lead; no worship, no music, just loving on hurting people. 

What will it be like?

Every month Water of Life’s City Link puts on a community outreach.  Think of it as a mini WOW Jam.  They have booths, hand out food, games for kids and so on.  It should go until about noon.  Feel free to bring you spouses and children if you like.

I would love to see you all there,

Andy

Well we are three months into 2012 and we are off and running.  In January, we sat down and prayed for vision and drafted a few goals for this year.  Some have already begun to take shape and some we are looking forward to later this year.  Before we dive into our 2012 goals I would love to share with you how we did in 2011.

Last year we provided worship for over 1500 services including 19 services a weekend minimum across 6 different venues staffed with full bands.  That is an astounding accomplishment and it was all made possible because of your willingness to serve the people of Water of Life.  That’s 1500 opportunities for people to interact with a God that desires to touch his people.  We can’t say it enough – THANK YOU!

Last year we also…

• Launched the new Upland Venue staffed with full bands
• Moved Soul Celebration into their new venue and added a 3^rd service
• Brought Ben Ishizuka on to the Water of Life Worship Staff
• Started Proskuneo Project for Vocalist and worship leaders
• Began using backing tracks
• Launch six new elements into the worship center worship experience

For this year out heart is to continue to grow in our heart for worship, our musical ability and continue providing intimate authentic worship for the people at Water of Life.  We hope to do this through our 2012 Goals…

• The Internship Program– We launched our internship program in January of 2012 selecting the following three people to assist in the Worship Program
  • Angelica Swan – Angelica comes from a church in Studio City called the Gathering Place where she led worship for the past 4 years.  Angelica auditioned 2011 to play keys and sing and instantly we saw a call on her life as a worship leader.   Angelica is assisting Chantel in providing worship for the Positively Women’s ministries.
  • Jake Haber – Jake has been around Water of Life since early high school.  All of us have watched as Jake has progressed into a phenomenal guitar player and worship leader.  Jake is heavily involved in Activate and assists Jenna in the oversight of the Activate worship program.
  • Victoria Dumapias – Victoria auditioned in the fall of 2010 and has served as a background vocalist for the worship department for the last few years.  The calling on her life to lead worship is undeniable.  Victoria is involved on PURE’s Creative team and is working along side Ben to provide worship for PURE.
• Workshops – Rather than sending us all to a workshop/conference as we have in years past – It’s our hope this year (funding permitting) to bring the workshops to us, holding them for each instrument separately and at different times throughout the year.  This way we can receive more one on one interaction from the instructors.  More to come on this, as we get further into the year.
• Worship Team Trainer – This is something we wanted to do last year but were unable to due to launching the Upland Campus.  This will kick off in September of this year.  It will be a mandatory 4-week study that will be held on Sundays after 3^rd service.   It will refresh us all on the theology of worship as well as the practical reasons we stand up there week after week and sing.
• Reconnection with those we serve - When we were praying through the vision for this year and where God was taking us we sensed we need to come off the stage and minister on another level to the people we lead in worship.  Therefore, we will be offering events this year that will reconnect us.  The first being Saturday June 2^nd at the food warehouse where we will not provide musical worship but we will worship thru service to others.  Please join us.

We are so excited for what this year holds and the fact that we get to work alongside you.  Thank you from all of us for what you do.

The WOL Worship Staff

I’m sure most of you have already heard about the new venue we are launching in Upland on September 18th but I wanted to take a second to write you an give you some details on how this will effect our department.  As you all know first hand we do A LOT around here.  Everything from Club 56, to Men’s BBQ’s, to Activate, to Sunday Mornings and on and on.  We calculated it out last year and the worship department lead well over 1000 services and this year I am sure will break last years number.  You all are so faithful and servant hearted and I can’t tell you how privileged we are to have all you working with us.  Now with the launch of Water of Life Upland we will branch out on a new path that some may look at as simply adding more to our plate, but I hope we all can see if as more than that.  A new opportunity to lead people into the presence of a God who heals, transforms and restores people back to him.  I am so privileged to stand next to you week after week and  partner with a living God that is hungry to meet his people.  Upland is simply another opportunity to do that.

All that to say we are adapting, changing and growing and with that comes growing pains for all of us.  The schedule may look different, the people you play with may change from time to time and there may be opportunity for us all to fill in some empty spots on the schedule.  You may get calls to fill in but please remember this DON’T GET BURNT OUT!  Please say no if we ask and you can’t do it or simply need a week off.  You are more important than filling a spot to us and you are people before you are musicians.  I would ask that if you are able and willing to step up for a season and are able to serve more we are more than willing to use you.  As far as the regular schedule goes it is pretty ironed out but there are some holes that we may need filled.   As you have seen September is posted but it will take a few months to work out the kinks to get a regular flow going.  So, if you are planing on taking vacations or needing a week off please let us know in advance; it helps us massively to be able to plan those things out.

Logistics of the Upland Venue

The venue is located on 1020 West 8th Street, Upland CA.  There will be one service at 10:00 am on Sunday Mornings to start with.  We are soft launching (meaning just flying it to the WOL congregation) on Sept 18th and a hard launch (inviting the community) on Oct 2nd.  There will be no rehearsal except on Sunday mornings but there will be a place on the preparations page where you can view the upcoming set just like all the other venues.  Call time will be 8:00 am on Sundays but you should be out by noon so comparatively it will be a shorter easier day.

Again thanks so much for all you do we don’t take it lightly,

Andy & The WOL Worship Staff

iRehearse Software, v. 1.2
Platform:  Mac and PC
Cost:  $14.99 (full version)

iRehearse software is a great tool for preparing to play a worship set. This software offers several tools to help musicians practice along to existing MP3 music files. This software allows you to create and save playlists, change the key of the song, loop a section of the song, slow a song down to examine specific musical parts, and more. Here’s an overview.

CREATE A PLAYLIST
iRehearse allows you to create a song list by importing MP3s either through the menu system or by simply dragging and dropping MP3s into the playlist window. Once created, a playlist can be saved and recalled.

CHANGE THE PITCH
I know we often change the keys of the songs – in the Pitch area you can change the song key by moving the pitch 9 semi-tones in either direction. For instance, if the original song is in the Key of B but you want to practice the song in the Key of D, the Pitch setting can easily be set to +3 semi-tones and the song is now in the Key of D. Once set, the new Pitch setting can be saved for that song by simply saving the playlist. (NOTE:  Although the music will be in the correct Pitch, the vocals may sound very odd.)

LOOP A SECTION OF THE SONG
The Loop section allows you to repeat a specific section of a song by placing “Mark In” and “Mark Out” settings on the sound wave. This settings can be moved in very small increments to achieve perfect placement. Once set, you can use the Play Loop button to repeatedly listen to that section. With another button, the loop settings can be cleared. Using this Loop section can allow you to work out a specific musical part.

CHANGE THE TEMPO
Another section that can help you work out a specific musical part is the Tempo section. This section allows you slow down the tempo of the music in 5% increments so you can hear the specific notes more clearly. Once you have figured out the part, you can practice it at slower pace and increase it slowly until you can play it at it’s original tempo. The Tempo and Loop sections work very well together.

iRehearse is also available in a free “demo” version, but not all functions are available (such as saving playlists) and the software will quit every 30 minutes. There are also other similar programs available that offer the same sort of features (such as Transpose). Some are free; some are platform specific.

Here’s the link: iRehearse

Hope this help,

Andy

Andy

iPhone – iPod Touch & iPad

The best solution by far for the apple devices is Goodreader. There are 3 flavors: Goodreader Lite, Goodreader, and Goodreader iPad. This program is the BOMB! You can download from the web or via wi-fi connection directly to your device. You can also connect to mobile me accounts, email accounts, and Web-DAV servers. Without getting too geeky that means it’s REALLY THE BOMB! The free version is cool but for larger PDFs I recommend the reasonably priced at 99 cents app. They can all be found at the Apps Store.

Android 1.x – 2.0 Devices:

This mobile OS requires a 2 program solution so far as I can tell. The best downloader is a free alternative web browser named Steel. It give you the option to open or save downloads. Steel automatically places the files directly into a download folder on your phone’s memory card. This free app is great!

On 2.0 devices the built-in Gallery program will find the movies and pictures, but the built-in Music program isn’t quite as good. This is where the 2nd free program, Meridian, comes in.  When you download the music file with Steel you will be asked to save or open it. You can then open the file with Meridian, which has ugly icons, but works great for music and even plays movies better than Gallery.

Android 2.1. (and above) Devices

If you’re fortunate enough to have a Droid, Incredible, or other 2.1 or higher Android device, Google has fixed the issues in the player and browser so you can just download and the mp3 will instantly appear in the Music program with album art and all!

Blackberry

By far the hardest to download directly to a device is with the Blackberry. The OS designers have felt the need to limit the wireless file download size. I’ve scoured and googled to little avail, but did find a couple of cool programs. The most promising program is BeFTP. I wouldn’t buy the program without testing it first. I don’t own a Blackberry device so I can’t help you there. The program website is www.beiks.com/rim/BeFTP.asp While our website is HTTP not FTP, it looks like you can browse HTTP sites from the photos on their site.

The other cool program is called WiFi File Transfer for Blackberry. I found this on crackberry.com. You can use your computer to wireless download to your blackberry via a WiFi network. Obviously if you’re not using a wireless router in your home this won’t work, but it eliminates the extras steps of plugging in the USB cable and using the Desktop Media Manager.

If you find or know of any programs please pass the info on. I will keep poking around until I find a complete solution for Blackberry (besides getting a better phone) LOL

Hope this helps a little – tq

*** UPDATE ***

Oooh… just found a Blackberry program that may do it. Podtrapper is made for podcasts but looks like it can be a mp3 download manager and player as well! There is a trial if someone could check it out. You can download the free trial HERE on the developer’s website. The only downside so far is the $9.99 pricetag…  they mention something in the forums about emailing the links to files you want to download to yourself and the pasting them in Podtrapper…..

We are excited to launch our new and improved website that will help you prepare for the weekend and keep you up speed on all that is going in the worship department at Water of Life.  We hope this website will be used as a tool to enrich your playing abilities as well as your understanding of worship and how it creates a venue for us to interact with God.  Thank you so much for all you do and  the countless hours you pour into this ministry – it couldn’t run without you.

Sincerely,

The  WOL Worship Staff