Wednesday night was worship team practice as usual. It went really well. The team has been sounding really good since the addition of our bass player, David.

David is one of those guys who I severely underestimated on on first impression. He is short and kinda scrawny, has a littly oily ponytail, rarely shaves, his hands are shaky… the kind of guy I’d figure has a lot of needs, won’t contribute a lot. Not that I’m criticizing people like that; they need to be in the church, and we need to help them to learn and grow; but that’s just the impression I got from him. Then I heard he plays bass and wanted to join the worship team. So I said sure, come to practice… and boy was I suprised.

Ends up David plays bass with a jazz trio a couple nights a week, and he’s really good. The first night at practice he asked “how do you forsee using me here?” What a question on the first night from a guy I don’t know! So I asked him, “what are your talents?” Well, he likes to do arrangements. So I asked him to do an arrangement so we could try it out.

The next week he came in with a two-page jazz arrangement of “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”. Beautiful stuff. I stumbled through the sight-reading of the piano part (jazz has never been my forte), thinking he might be a bit disgusted at my poor skills. But he was more excited than the proverbial kid in the candy store. We have practiced that arrangement every week since then, and will be performing it for the first time this Sunday. I’m sure as soon as he’s happy with this one he’ll be cranking out another one. What great enthusiasm!

David has quickly become one of my most faithful worship team members. I’m looking forward to seeing how God is going to use him to help develop the group… I see lots of good things in store. He will serve as a constant reminder to me to look past first impressions.

I spend quite a bit of time hanging out at the online message board called “The Rumor Forum“. It is a group of people who are loosely grouped as fans of the group Caedmon’s Call. Many of them have known each other for several years, have attended concerts and other get-togethers as a group, and in general are pretty good friends in real life. I, on the other hand, just started hanging out there about a year ago, haven’t met any of them, etc. And yet somehow I find myself drawn in, wishing for acceptance and looking forward to each day’s interaction. Why?

If I could answer that question, it’d make my wife happier for sure, and might even make me happier… although I’m not that grumpy to begin with. I don’t know why it’s addicting. I don’t know why I consider these people friends… and yet I do. Is it weird to have a friend you’ve never met in person? Is it strange to consider interactions carried out entirely through your web browser as “friendships” in the first place? Such are my random thoughts on this Saturday morning.

I’d really like to meet some of these people. One of them might be coming to town on business sometime this spring, so I could get together with him for dinner or something… but many of the others may be people that I never really “know”, whose only face I see is the little avatar they put next to their online posts, whose history I know from reading their blogs… kinda weird, I guess. I’d like to meet some of them for real. Somehow it would validate some of the thoughts I’ve had towards them, which would be nice. And hey, it’s always nice to make more friends… my friend list is rather limited, although I consider that the way God has it for now, rather than a complaint.