Justin Acuff’s Blog

Not too happy today. Woke up this morning to see that my car (along with a couple other cars on my street) had gotten egged. I’ve gotten almost all of it off without any damage, so it could have been worse. It better not have been any of the youth group kids.

And on another note… I’m starting to feel a little bit better. The throat is still sore, but not near as bad as it was this weekend. Taking yesterday off helped me catch back up on the rest that I had been missing because of it.

This weekend I was up in Gatlinburg being a chaperon for our Youth Group at Winterfest. The theme of the weekend was Rock Solid. There were special performances by Bob Stromberg, Tait, and Lost and Found.

The sessions were really good. I really enjoyed the 1st session on Saturday. It was over the Archaeological evidence we have from Biblical times. You can imagine, if I found it interesting, just how many of our teens (and several other teens) found it. The speaker was a professor at Harding, so the way it was presented probably didn’t appeal to the teens. Hopefully they got Archaeological evidence exists.

I had to chaperon the 6^th and 7^th grade boys. Three of the four kids had their parents up there, so it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Boys will be boys though.

On Saturday, we had some snow come in which made things slick. The parking lot had ice patches along with some of the roads. We heard about Norm and Connie’s wreck after we got back from the long afternoon session on Saturday. Thankfully, they are alright. This cause some concern about us getting back. The roads had cleared up by Sunday. Apparently, some of our senior girls have not learned that its always best to use the bathroom before going on a trip. Like 15 minutes after we left Gatlinburg, they were asking me to stop for a bathroom break. ALL the adults were on my side, so they could whine all they wanted to, we weren’t going to stop. (We did end up stopping because the Gupton’s were going to meet us along Chapman Highway to pick up their kids… So the girls that wanted to go to the bathroom didn’t have to suffer the whole trip back.)

A full review of the album was not a requirement for getting a Pre-Release copy, so that is still to come. What was a requirement, was to answer these questions.

1. Are these songs something you and your congregation could worship to?
2. If so, Which songs stood out the most?
3. If not, why do these songs not appeal to your congregation?
4. Did you personally enjoy the record?
5. Any other feedback (good or bad).

1. Are these songs something you and your congregation could worship to?
I would love to be able to answer yes to this question, but I’m afraid my answer would be no. The explanation is explained in 3.

2. If so, Which songs stood out the most?
My answer was no, so I don’t have much to put here. Don’t get discouraged, I’ve got some good stuff to say under 4.

3. If not, why do these songs not appeal to your congregation?
Our congregation is a Church of Christ (A Capella style worship). We have a very difficult time with songs that are not written for 4 part harmony. A number of people reading this won’t agree with me, but being A Capella really hinders us in our worship. Songs that really would help drive a point home or fit in with the theme of a service a lot of times are not sung because:

1. It will alienate the older folks at our worship service
2. Only a small percentage of the people would know the song
3. An A Capella arrangement doesn’t exist, so we can’t sing it
4. It might cause the younger folks to break out into worship, which may provoke #1.

Our congregation simply needs more time to embrace the songs on this album.

4. Did you personally enjoy the record?
I really liked this album. Since I got it, I’ve been listening to it in my car and on my iPod. It has that Caedmon’s Call feel to it. The songs that immediately stick out to me are “Great and Mighty”, “Sing His Love”, “The Story”, and ‘I Surrender All”. I’m sure as I listen to it some more, I may pick up a few more songs. These are just my first impressions.

5. Any other feedback (good or bad).
This is a great album that will appeal to a wide range of people. I can see a few of these songs really taking off and enhancing the worship services of the congregations that have a contemporary instrumental service.

Caedmon’s Call
In The Company of Angels II: The World Will Sing

1. Great and Mighty
2. Draw Me Nearer
3. Sing His Love
4. Rest Upon Us
5. The Story
6. The Fountain
7. Be Merciful to Me
8. I Surrender All
9. We Give Thanks
10. Fellowship
11. Mercy of My God

Through a special promotion for Worship Leaders, I was sent a Pre-Release of Caedmon’s Call new CD that will be in stores on March 7, 2006. Stay tuned for my review of it.

UTK wasn’t considered a Christian College. According to the folks at Winterfest though, we are. Woohoo! (http://www.winterfest.org/default.asp?page=colleges)

The weather looked really bad today, but it turned out to be a great day to go hiking. This morning I was thinking of not going so I could work on the stuff for Worship on Sunday Morning (and evening). Friday the weather was really nice, but Saturday morning, it was raining. I ended up deciding to go, and I’m glad I did.

We hiked in the Big South Fork area. This is an area that I haven’t done much hiking in at all. So practically all the trails there are new trails for me. We started out at the parking lot at Leatherwood Ford. We went up the John Muir Trail to the O&W Railroad Bridge. It was a really easy hike of only 2.3 miles. All the way it was snowing, but it didn’t feel like it was all that cold. So after we got to the bridge we started to explore a little bit further. The trail head for Devil’s Den was real close and it had a marked distance of only .5 miles, so we decided to do it.

Well shortly after we get on the trail, we come up to the intersection pictured above. Now, it may be a little hard to see, but if you look close enough, you’ll see two trails. One goes up and the other stays about the same path. You know, this is sort of what I imagine Robert Frost talking about in his “Road Not Taken” poem. Both paths were worn equally about the same. However, in our case, we did travel both. There was no marking to say which way we should go. I guess we assumed with a name like Devil’s Den, the path to the left was the right one. We probably go a quarter mile and the trail just ends. We explored around to see if the trail picked up, but it didn’t. So we go back to the split and take the other way. We ended up hiking up to a waterfall. It turns out we never found Devil’s Den.

This is the phrase that Todd is trying to make fetch.