Set the Atmosphere for Creativity

Being that I just love creativity, and knowing that you need the right atmosphere to get creative, here is an awesome set of tunes, probably geared toward my fellow nerds, that should help.
I grew up playing video games and fell in love with the RPG genre.  The character and story development always captured me.  This music is taken from one of the most successful RPG sagas in history, Final Fantasy.  If you're an RPG fan you've more than likely at least heard of this series and if you haven't played it yet, you NEED to make it a thing.
I know, most of the time I'm writing about worship, and leading, and stuff..... Today seemed like a great day to just have some fun!  Make sure you get some time to kick back and relax for a bit folks!  Break out your oldschool gaming system and lay in to some bad guys!!!

I aspire to one day write a mind blowingly amazing adventure novel.  I've developed some character ideas already but haven't really fleshed anything out.  Sometimes I'll sit down with my sketch pad and just scribble out some ideas of how these characters could look.  Other times I write their back story and imagine myself as that character.  But every time i sit down to write like this, even as I'm writing to you now, I need some atmosphere, so I put on something that will stir up my brains creativity and these songs work amazingly well.  You can also find these with full orchestra, and they are EPIC!

So my bottom line here is this:
1. Take time to refresh. Relax and do the things you enjoy!  I read a ton, and love the occasional old school video game.
2. When you're recharged and feeling that creative urge, make sure you have a space that holds the atmosphere you need to cultivate those creative ideas.

Who knew that such incredible music could come out of video games. 
This particular song set is taken from one of the video game industry's top ranked game of all time, Final Fantasy VII.

Tale of the Tambourine Lady: Are You a Distraction in Worship?

It was a glorious Sunday morning.  The congregation was congregating, pastors were pastoring, and the worship team was doing that prayer circle thing where you're invited to lead out as the spirit leads but then just stand there in awkward, yet reverent, silence.  After our stirring "go team" we ventured out onto the stage and took our positions, readying ourselves for an encounter with the Father.
Throwing my guitar strap over my shoulder, I made sure everything was in tune and stepped up to the mic.  Looking out over the good people of our church I did what any good worship leader should do to start the service and inspire all those groggy, but dedicated, first service folks... I proceeded with a short series of irritating questions.

"Are you excited to be in the house of the Lord?  Are you ready to worship?  Won't you stand with me?"

As people began slowly rising from their seats I noticed a new face sitting in the second row.  She glanced up at me and I mouthed the word "welcome" to her as she smiled.  I'm always glad to see new people joining us, then I saw her retrieve the largest tambourine I've ever seen, which had somehow been hiding in her purse.  Had Mary Poppins come to church today?  Whose taking care of the Banks children!?  Who will give them their spoon full of sugar!?!?
Needless to say, a feeling of dread crept over me as if Miss Poppins had snapped her fingers and commanded it too.

We kicked off the first song, nice and up tempo, and I watched as our guest stretched out, wound up, and began beating that giant tambourine like it had just tried to steal her purse.
The problem here was that I did not have in ear monitors and could hear every single, delightful, thump and tinkle from our new self appointed team member who refused to confine her expression of worship to the prison cell we call "tempo".  She was flying her freedom flag and stomping those feet like the devil himself was directly under her pew.

Well, after repeated attempts to get the attention of one of our ushers I gave up and focused as best I could on the remainder of the set... Apparently the lovely lady and I had the same plan except she wanted a solo.

Why am I sharing this?  Because it is possible to be a distraction in worship.  I'll be the first to stand up and advocate for freedom of expression but you also need to be aware of the people around you.  Are you taking away from their experience?  Are you slugging then in the head with a gigantic tambourine?  You can argue that focusing on something like this will only take YOUR attention away from worship.  Its not a matter of removing all your attention from worship.  Just be aware of where you're waving your flag (I got clocked in the face by a worship flag once) or if the massive percussion instrument you toted with you to church is going to be appropriate for the setting.  You might need to just wait for a your Sunday evening family jam sessions.