Ok, I am up in the San Jose area at Mt Hermon Confrence Center attending the “Christian Songwriters Conference”. My wife Sarah and my workmate, Terry Lu, were gracious enough to make it possible for me to come up here this weekend.

I embarked on this weekend not knowing what to expect. Funny thing, most of the people that are up here have voiced the same sentiment to me. They too had no idea what to expect when coming here. This is unlike anything I have ever done.

I have been leading worship at my church for some years now and back in 2000 I wrote and selft published an album. I wrote all the songs on the album. They aren’t bad and they have blessed a number of people but I never really felt comfortable calling myself a “songwriter” per sey. But, I have written some songs, so coming up here I didn’t feel totally out of place.

There was some craziness involved in getting here and I will sum it up by simply saying….I left my Blackberry in the shuttle I took from the airport, I got here way to early to check in, there is no food up here and everything was closed until 5PM, my room was the last one to be cleaned and you can see how the day went. But with all that being said…..the day was amazing and I wasn’t bothered by the little things that got in the way.

The highlight of the evening was being taught by Charlie Peacock. The guy has pretty much played or produced every notable Christian artist around and I was eager to hear what he had to say.

He is very quiet and soft spoken, which surprised me. He spoke on truth and how it needs to be the focus of our songwriting. Not just the truth that God is good and the totally true things we find in normal Christian music but truth that is in all of life. We need to bring truth in songwriting to poverty, heartbreak, the darkness of the soul, freedom for the opressed and so on. We as the creative church are called to bring the Truth of Jesus Christ to ALL of the dying world. Even the parts that aren’t “happy” to sing about. He totally blew me a way and fired me up.

I am tired and I am sorry for rambling. I am so overloaded with sweet creative goodness right now I am about ready to EXPLODE.

Jesus is totally rocking my world right now and I am loving it!

Until tomorrow…..I am off to sleep at Band Camp!