Good Morning.

Did you sing Happy Birthday to the church this Pentecost Sunday?

An update (particularly since some of you have asked) about my social networking experiment/experience...
About 8 weeks ago my friend Doug Lawrence was visiting and convinced (watched over my shoulder and told me what to do) me to join facebook. I had resisted it for years, for a lot of reasons which aren't important to this update. I started in fear and trepidation, mostly because I didn't want to be spending even more of my day sitting in front of a CRT. Here's what's happened...
As of this writing, I have almost 680 facebook friends. That's a lot (especially for me), and is quite unexpected. Among my fb friends are people I haven't seen since high school, former students of mine from when I taught at the college level in the 70s, and from when I taught high school for a couple of years early in this decade. I keep up with our kids (who at times seem to live on facebook), two of whom reconnected and rekindled with people from their pasts (there's hope I might be a grandfather yet!).
And facebook led to Twitter...where I have over a hundred people following me (again, for those of you who are worried...that's not a stalker thing, but a good thing).
I've learned how to manage the new information stream, and to do a lot of the social networking thing through tools that make it much less time consuming than I thought.
In the process, we've extended the reach of Creator, and Monday Morning Email, which is a good thing for us, and for you.
Bottom line? So far, it's all good. (disclaimer: your results may be different; no warranty is made...)

If you are interested in knowing more about what I'm finding out about music ministry and worship leadership out on the net, follow me on twitter. During the last week, for instance, you might have been interested in what the Oregon Bach Festival is doing (rewriting the Messiah) this year (http://is.gd/Hp1h), or, if the economy is forcing you to change jobs, how to decide where to live (http://is.gd/HQU4), or, if you serve in a large church, about a new resource called The City (http://bit.ly/ZQLMI). Want to follow me? Click on the link below my name at the bottom of this email.

OK, on to business...

● Something's coming! - We can't tell you yet, but I haven't been this excited about a new service of Creator since we launched Monday Morning Email. Stay tuned...

● Article compilation CDs - We no have 3 collections of back articles in pdf format on CD Rom. The Choir and Leadership collections ($19.95 each) contain over 40 articles, while the Worship collection ($24.95) contains 60 articles--that is less than 50 cents per article, post paid in the US...how can you lose?

Here's some of what is included on each CD...

● Choir: 101 Great Choir Ideas/The Incarnational Work of the Adult Choir/Choir Committment: The "Real" Cost/Letter to the Singer in the 4th Row/Understanding Your Head Voice
● Leadership: Creating and Sustaining Healthy Teams on a Church Staff/Identifying Tensions over Musical Style/Ministry and Women: Ambassadors of the Spirit/Pastors and Church Musicians/The Church Musician as Transformational Leader
● Worship: A Theology of Worship/Don't Plan a Service...Create a Moment/Eight Common Elements of Worship Renewal/The Worship Driven Church/Worship Planning: What is the Foundation?  

You can order them by clicking here and looking in the left hand column for "Featured Products."

● Last week's blog posts at www.dotdotdotblog.com included: - Stop Calling It Worship... . And, if you are reading this on Tuesday or later, check out the "next" one: Liturgic or Lethargic.

● Our current survey will not be up much longer! Haven't taken it? Please click here and take the survey on technical aspects of your music/worship ministry.

● Creator Leadership Network is a group on facebook - The peer-to-peer helping aspect of CLN. Join the group and let us know what you need. Find our CLN group at
http://groups.to/creatorleadershipnetwork

● Become a fan of Creator on facebook - Just go here.

Onward...

● In this week's MME, one of Bob Burroughs' guest contributors, Rob Howell, makes a great point. Does anybody want YOUR job? And no, it is not what it seems...this is not a paranoid rant. Rather a question about how we go about our business. Then there is the new game: Staff Meeting Bingo! Plus all the other great stuff you've come to expect from Bob. To read this week's MME...just click here. 

Finally...remember that if you have a customer service problem you can email us at customerservice@creatormagazine.com and we'll help you resolve the problem.

This week, make a new friend...and please tell your friends and colleagues about Creator and MME too.

Blessings,

Vern Sanders
Publisher
Creator Magazine
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pismo-Beach-CA/Creator-Magazine/81470123214?ref=ts
CLN is on facebook at
http://groups.to/creatorleadershipnetwork
Vern is on facebook at
http://profile.to/vernsanders/
Read Vern's blog @ www.dotdotdotblog.com
Follow me on Twitter! @vernsanders