West Cocoa Chat

Wow - I don't know where to start without drying my eyes when I think about "The Pulse's" debut this past Saturday night at our church. No, my eyes are not watering due to the fog / smoke in the picture. :) BTW - Steven is in the white shirt playing bass and singing backup.

My tears are tears of joy and thanksgiving. When I was introduced to the fledgling world of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) in the early 80's, it touched my soul. It gave me a way to worship God in song in the music that reached me. I often dreamed about a day where I would be at a church that would allow, encourage, and promote CCM as an event in it's confines. Of course chances of that happening at a Church of Christ seemed remote.

I remember going to the first "Night of Joy" held at Disney World. It was the early 80's and the Park was being closed and then reopened for a night of CCM. Amy Grant was one of the performers. We were driving to Disney when I made one of my famous predictions. I said, "The place will be empty. How many people are going to go to Disney World to listen to Christian Music?" You know, God must get a real kick out of me because that first night was sold out!!! Shoulder to shoulder, Christians from churches across Florida were worshiping over and over again! As I sit here listening to "How He Loves" I'm still amazed.

Can I digress on my blog for a moment - this seems to be a recurrent theme with me. Something I think is impossible God must look at, smile at me, maybe even laugh, and then know that He is working out His Plan in His timing. I could go on and I have in the past.

Our timing with scheduling C-4 wasn't very good as we realized later in the week that Cocoa was holding an event in it's downtown park by the river called "Praise-Fest." It went on all day Saturday with activities for the family and numerous local CCM Bands playing throughout the day. Nevertheless we had about 100 people show up for our first C-4 Service.

Steven's Elementary School Music Teacher came to hear the band. She is also a worship leader at a local church. She had attended Praise-Fest earlier that day having heard several CCM Bands. After the concert she told us "the Pulse" was better than anything she had heard that day.

One of our former members who has been in a CCM Band for years told our worship guy that Steven's backup vocals with his harmonizing in his opinion were outstanding. It was good to hear some praise for the boy after the tough year he has had.

Even better was seeing how all of these guys were engaged in worship to THE God of Creation as they engaged. They had put in hours and hours in an act that can only be described as a gift to our church and to our community in the name of Jesus! I tell you family I'll take being "voted off the island" any day of the week to see and experience what the Pulse brought us into Saturday night.

I cannot thank enough our worship leader and the lead singer of the Pulse, Mike for all that he does. He is very demanding but he loves our church and the kids of the Pulse. Kudos have to go to the other members of the band - Craig on guitar, his brother Trevor (who suffered a baseball career ending knee injury that he is recovering from) on drums, Vaughn on keyboards, Matthew on lead guitar - that boy has the quickest hands, and Steven who played bass and sang backup vocals. Mike's wife, Teeva also sang on a few songs and did an outstanding job.

Only God knows what's next for our church and the Pulse. It was good to be there at the start.