Good Morning.

Welcome back! For those of you who can and/or did take the past week or so away from your church ministry responsibilities, I'm sure you have returned to a full desk. Here at the Creator office, we spent some time browsing the internet because we had some extra time due to the holidays, and we found some interesting things.

● First, you may want to check out what one church's Christmas special services were like. Just reading about them made me tired thinking about all the planning that had to go into making the services happen. Go here and search for the entry entitled Sunday Summary - Music: December 21, 2008.

● And I personally found this research to be fascinating. It concerns how visual stimulus affects auditory perception. If you are doing any kind of live projection you need to read this. Go here and see for yourself.

● Just before New Year's, I was honored to participate, along with Reverend Jennifer Lord and visual artist Ted Lyddon Hatten, as an panelist for Marcia McFee's Worship Design Studio. The four of us had a wonderful time brainstorming and suggesting creative ideas for the upcoming lenten season. If you are interestred, you'll want to go to Marcia's website to sign up--the Worship Design Studio "plans ahead" for each liturgical season so that you might benefit from some expert insight into themes and resources. Just click here.

● And I was supposed to tell you all about this before New Year's, but dropped the ball. The reason I was supposed to tell you will be apparent when I mention the tune "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. Fred Migliore, host of FM Odyssey, the long-running nationally syndicated radio show, is releasing a two CD interview retrospective with Fogelberg, who passed away from advanced prostate cancer on December 16th, 2007 at the age of 56. During that interview, Fred engaged Dan in a wonderful, animated conversation about Dan’s first 25 years in the music business. You will hear 13 full-length songs, including "Same Old Lang Syne," "Nether Lands," "The Last Nail," and "Mountains To The Sea," as well as Dan's thoughts on many of those songs. This 2 CD Collector’s Edition is available for $29.95 at http://www.fmodyssey.com Three dollars from each CD sold will go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation in Dan’s name.  

Before we get to this week's Monday Morning Email, we have a few things we want to catch you up on as well:

● As promised, we have added a new survey on the home page. This time we are asking about your Library/Bookstore ministry. Go here to take the survey.

● If you missed reading the past couple of week's emails, we have a batch of new articles available. Just go here.

● And, one last time, we'd like you all to have a copy of our latest issue of Creator in print--The Call. As a member of CLN (which you are if you are reading this in your email) you can start or renew your subscription to Creator at the best possible rates. You must log in to get your special CLN rate, which you can find by looking in the left hand column after clicking here. Not sure you want to subscribe, but want to see a copy of this issue? Just look for the Free Sample Issue offer on our home page.

● In this week's MME, Bob Burroughs presents a great batch of useful information and resources. To read this week's MME, click here.

This week, pray for new beginnings...and please tell your friends and colleagues about Creator and MME too.

Blessings,

Vern Sanders
Publisher
Creator Magazine