My last post explains this short series. It is 11:12pm and I am sitting in the studio and suddenly my brain is protesting even considering this idea… “why would you decide to do this now?” it says to me. Well I am gonna do what I said I’d do!

We are well and truly into the mix process and it’s rocking… click here to watch a little video sneak preview from Luke who is producing with me!

Question 1: How do your KDG’s work at Hillsong Kids and how do you transition from large group time to KDG’s? - Braden

KDG’s are an integral part of Hillsong Kids. It stands for Kids Discipleship Groups, our small groups for kids on weekends and Friday nights for our Preteen program ‘Voltage’. In fact it is one of the main things I mention when talking to prospective volunteers and leaders. I explain that one of the most powerful things you can do in the life of our Church is connect with the same group of kids each week. Building relationship and being an example and guide to living for Jesus Christ.

Our best example of this is on Sunday morning services when our primary (elementary) program is a large group/small group format. The last 20 or so minutes we break down into small groups of about 10 kids, depending on campus and service time. If I am MCing (every service has an MC leading) I would literally get the leaders standing around the room and send the children to their leader. They are usually in the same area each week so they know the drill.

We have ‘worksheets’ (horrible name I know… should be funsheets not work sheets), that relate to the theme, but we place a high emphasis on relational connection and pray and talking about real issues. The younger the kids are the more we rely on the sheets as a general rule.

Question 2: Dave. What rules do you have at kids church? how do you explain them to the kids? – Lisa

We have rules but we don’t call them that. At the front of our primary programs we have a “When At Hillsong Kids” sign.

1. Always be kind to others
2. Listen when others are talking
3. Put your hand up and wait to be asked to speak
4. Be Involved
5. Have Fun

We reinforce this with a ‘Welcome Video’ played at the beginning of each service that goes through the rules, points system, toileting procedure etc. About 1:30 long?

Thanks for your questions! More to come!

Ah!

Brilliant.

More new praise and worship music for kiddly winks.

I REALLY like the Kids on the Move team (I even bolded the REALLY if you noticed). The Senior pastor of Church on the Move Willie George practically invented children’s ministry (not even joking) and Jim Wideman it’s co-creator took it to new heights as the kids pastor for many years!

SIDE NOTE: I have had the privilege to spend some time with Jim Wideman and here’s pretty much how conversations go with him:

Me: ”So we did this <insert kind of cool thing> with our kids last year, but we couldn’t seem to <insert issue>”

Jim: (clears throat) “Yeah, tried somethin’ like that back in 1984 and found that you need to <insert solution> and God will bless it, dadgummit!”

Me: ”Oh… yeah… wow…”

(Problem solved).

And… back to topic: In the last little while the seeds blog has come online and been a HUGE blessing to me as I have watched kids services and events all filmed beautifully and lots or input from their myriad of awesome people like Adam Bush and Gabe George etc.

Check out their CM category on the blog.

So enter their album Greater is He!

Tracks include:

Jesus, What a Friend
I Love My Bible
Jesus Is Alive Right Now
Greater Is He
Supernatural
You Are My Rescue
I Obey Right Away
Jesus, I Love You
By Faith
Jesus Is the Way
Jesus on My Journey
Jesus, What a Friend (Remix)

My favourite? Jesus on My Journey.

I really like the title track Greater Is He with an awesome kids choir rocking in the background as well! But don’t take my word for it check out the iTunes link and sample some of these tunes!

Awesome job KOTM team, I’m sure that Hillsong Kids will be worshipping to some of these soon… which leads to a question… backing tracks and website with lyrics?

Something has puzzled me for years.

In my travels around the internet a song keeps popping up to mystify me. It appears that Hillsong Kids has performed and recorded the well known worship song ‘Every Move I Make‘ by David Ruis.

If you search Google with “Every move I make Hillsong Kids” 84,000 results come up!

If you search Youtube 184 videos result!

We have never actually recorded this song. And it’s definitely not us singing the song.

Can anyone help unravel this mystery?

In our latest curriculum: Supernatural, we are trying something different — the first two series had memory verse segments using actions and spoken word. In this one we have gone for songs that teach straight scripture.

So I can identify with a brand new album from Seattle Dads Tyson Paoletti and Greg Lutze, they have created the Rizers (short for Memorizers).

Writing songs to straight scripture can be quite restricting flomax mg and a challenge and these guys have done a magnificent job! I love music that comes out of local Churches, especially responding to a need, in this case teaching their kids scripture.

Here is a preview of some of the tracks:

And a vid of the creators talking about the project:

Youtube: The Rise of the Rizers

Check it out at their website therizers.com

I love that like Gorillaz it’s basically a virtual band. Gracie (lead vocals), Matty C. (guitar and vocals), Mei Mei (keytar) , A-Yo (drums) and Johnny Danger (bass). This is a cool way to help kids connect with the group while keeping the focus off personalities/superstars.

Anyway, enjoy!

3 year old Jonathan conducting to the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony… Jonathan’s passion for classical music became apparent when he was only eight months old. Shortly after that he began conducting on his own.

This video might just be better than Grover doing old Spice guy!

In fact I declare it my favourite video of all time I love it so much. If you work with flomax 0.2 mg kids you should watch this especially the last few seconds, there is a lot to be learned about joy for you and me.

3 Year Old Conducting

This blog has been quiet.

It may not get much noisier in the next little while, but I would love to share a couple of highlights from the last few weeks.

We have Kidsfest both in our Hills Campus in Sydney (all Sydney campuses join us) and for the first time in Brisbane!

We recorded a project for our preschoolers in Sydney, the first ever for that age group.

The days ran amazingly well, probably the best run Kidsfest we have ever had! Well done to our Hillsong Kids team!

By the way: Thanks for so much great feedback on the recent post about Story fill zyrtec prescription = Danger? In all the years writing this blog, its has been the most well engaged and responded post ever! So thanks to all commentors! And I will do a follow up post eventually!

A while back we were looking into how to do our Early Childhood Praise and Worship better. One of our awesome team Matt who also works in our Bible College suggested getting a hold of some Cuban Box Drums or cajón’s.

They were perfect and have added a fantastic dimension to the praise and worship we do with our little ones. They are capable of sounding like a whole drum kit with a skilled player. Any drummer/percussionist should pick this up pretty quickly.

So our team on a weekend service would typically look like an acoustic guitarist or two, cajón, maybe someone with an ‘egg‘ and a bunch of singers. They circulate through our rooms (depending on our different campuses) leading our kids in worship with our ‘Cubbyhouse’ (1-2 years) diovan 800 mg and ‘Ark’ (3-5 years).

So you have an instrument that this age finds fascinating (you sit on it and hit it),  supports the music brilliantly and is super portable!

They start from less than $100 on amazon but I would suggest moving up to a slightly higher price bracket to get quality!

The kind of music we do with our little ones is a mixture of some songs we have written and a bunch of bridges and choruses from our songs… eg. they

couldn’t sing the whole song ‘Tell the World‘, but the chorus is great! We don’t really use backing tracks with this age group a lot, but then again we haven’t ever done an Early Childhood kids album

So there you go, get one and try it out, you won’t regret it!

After the awesome Napkin conference last week myself and Nathan Mclean made our way around the US to visit a few friends and Churches.

We made it to Free Chapel in Georgia after battling through a blizzard… okay it was a little snow, but more than I have seen in long time! (Ah New Zealand, you have a wintery place in my soul).

But making it to the Church we hung out with youth pastor Clayton Baird (graduate of Hillsong Bible College) who showed us around their flippin’ awesome campus.

One dilantin generic safe of the coolest things about Kidpak (their children’s ministry) is KP7, the kids worship band!

I love seeing music for kids that is reaching them where they are at!

Take today’s hottest sounds like the music from Fall Out Boy, The Killers, All American Rejects, The Hives, Switchfoot, Cold Play, Nickelback, U2, The Black Eyed Peas (and even a little guitar hero)…

Mix them all together and what do you get…

KP7 – NOISE

You need to check these guys out, their latest album Noise was just released, you can preview the tracks here, or on iTunes.

Just saw this in the digital version of Charisma Magazine. A great article that talks about Hillsong Music and perhaps better than a lot of writing blends a great perspective on the Church with discussion of our Praise and Worship.

Australia’s Hillsong Church may be on the other side of the world, but its music and ministry style diflucan online have affected every continent. We talked to Pastor Brian Houston about the global impact of Aussie faith…

There are two ways to view it:

- On the fancy (and very pretty) Digital Magazine version.

- Or the standard blog post/static but linkable website version.

I discovered a few months ago exactly why Yancy has a website called Yancynotnancy, on a number of occasions as she was introduced to well meaning people down here in Australia, this would happen (or something close to this):

Introducer: Hey , this is Yancy.

Yancy: Hi there!

Person: Hi… Nancy?

Yancy: No… Yancy…

Person: Nancy?

Yancy: No… Yancy… with a Y.

Person: Y’Nancy?

Yancy: (a sigh as she quietly dies a little more inside) Yeah… you got it.

Anyway, she has a new album out, and what timing she has for it’s a CHRISTMAS album!

Have a Fancy Yancy Christmas is available on good old fashioned diamox prescription CD at Amazon, her website, and Itunes.

I have a bunch of Christmas albums that are on heavy rotation during the Christmas season… some Harry Connick Jr., Destiny’s Child, Israel Houghton and Vince Guaraldi…

Yancy joins that esteemed alumni on my iTunes playlist and fits in just fine! The production on this album is absolutely top notch, great programming and brilliant guitar work. We will be using this in our mix for our December services in Hillsong Kids for sure! And as I have mentioned before on this blog it’s great to see music (especially kids music) coming from Artists not just compilations from big music labels.

Dave out.

We have some comedians who read this blog. Just have a read of the comments from the previous post.

I decided against the ‘Top 10 things stolen from other people’s top 10 lists’ from Jonathon Clifforama

So I present to you:

The Top Ten Kids Music Resources.

So the rules for this little list… I am not including any of Hillsong Kids music resources. And will focus on any kind of resource that helps with creating/using/developing/producing/accompanying/pickling/whatevering music for use with kids and ministry.

This is stuff that we have used/loved and found valuable.

10. WDTV – Not the usual subject of such lists, this little device is absolutely brilliant for our multi-campus church. You put all your media… video MPEG files or a range of other formats onto any USB flash drive or an external hard drive and plug it where your DVD player used to be. The WDTV can then be used to playback all your backing tracks for Praise and Worship or curriculum in HD quality. There are a lot of generic brand units around that are similar, but I would trust the Western Digital brand any day.
I simply save an exact copy of our media flash drive on my computer, that way if it ever got lost… 20 bucks later I would simply drag the files over to a new 8/16Gb flash drive. We have this device in locations all over Sydney. It even has a seemingly well trafficked user community online. I paid around $200AU each for ours, but you can find them on special everywhere.

9. iTunes – It used to be that you needed to order CD’s and wait for them to arrive in the mail… I would be happy if I never had to buy another CD for the rest of my life. For a recent conference we needed a backing track for a Hannah Montana song. One search and click later and boom, the track is burnt to CD ready to use for the event! There are a bunch of music stores out there, iTunes is the largest and most available all over the world so it gets the number 9 slot.

That being said, there will always be a place for the humble CD, just like there is a place for vinyl records today!

8. New Wine – Ahh, the Motherland. My Dad is English and I have a British Passport so I thought I should add a nod to my ancestral roots. My connection with New Wine is Simon Parry who we wrote a song with last year called More Than Enough which is on this album right here. The New Wine team, a network of churches and believers across all denominations (from the website) do a great job releasing awesome music for all ages.

There seems to be a strength in the UK for networks connecting lots of churches together, another similar movement Spring Harvest does some great music for kids (and a few Hillsong Kids covers).

7. depakote price target=”_blank”>Doug Horley – Back in the day (which was a Wednesday), we rocked out hard for many months, perhaps years to ‘Put Your Hands in the Sky‘. It was a huge hit with our kids right around the time we started work on Jesus is my Superhero. He also pulls out some very surreal and hilarious puppet tracks on his CD’s between songs that really make me laugh.

6. Radio Disney – Millions of dollars are spent by the House of Mouse to figure out what kids like to listen to, so why not take that research, and make sure that money gets put to good use. Cultural trends are found all over this site, although in a fast paced Google world, Disney is unlikely to be ahead of the curve. They have always found their sweet spot right in the safe, profitable middle zone… not quite pushing the envelope but rarely behind.

There are fascinating discussions that can happen when you talk about lyrics with kids (especially preteens). Actually taking a song apart and dissecting it to see if those lyrics reflect the truth or are contrary to a Christ centred world view is very powerful.

5. Propellerhead Software – Creators of the popular Reason, ReBirth, ReCycle software packages. Now there are a LOT of options when it comes to creating music… on the Mac you have Garageband and Soundtrack Pro and for the Pro’s, Logic. There are a bunch of options for PC as well, but audio production is an industry dominated by Mac’s.

There are SO many options available to you but let me explain why I went with Reason + Pro Tools. The music I record is either creating demos or maybe music mixes for using in our programs. If I am recording a track at home, it is highly unlikely that it will just be left like that due to my limited recording abilities. So I chose Reason for the simple fact it has a HUGE library of Refills (sounds and loops etc) for just about every genre. So I can put something together pretty quick. It integrates tightly into Pro Tools via rewire (I just lost some of you) so I can take to our Church studio (who use Pro Tools) and continue working on it with the fancy gear.

4. Integrity Music – Integrity is a simply massive record label, they distribute all our Hillsong Albums in the U.S. and have a huge library of music! Check out the Kids link for the online store here. There is simply a heap of music here to inspire you and your kids!

3. CitiKidz – Go the Aussies! I love seeing churches rise up and put emphasis, value and effort into ministering to kids, so I have been so pumped to see Luke Harris and the Citipointe church team produce live Praise and Worship for kids! They have two albums out and you should get them for your church. In the U.S. they have partnered with Kidmo, so check out their site to order!

2. Yancy and Amber Sky Records – Yancy is a champion in music for all ages of kids and serves as director of Amber Sky Records which is part of the The rethink Group. She is a great friend and makes fantastic music AND my 4 year old has a big crush on her, although his girlfriend is now Zara and not Yancy he tells me. There are not too many artists from locals churches making music for kids, and hardly any making GREAT music, so give it up for Yancy. I am excited to see the resources coming out of Amber Sky as well!

1. Your Local Church – I have said it before and I will say it again, in terms of teaching, music, any creative endeavour, just roll with your pastor. Take your cues, direction and leading from your senior pastor/leadership team. So many of our themes and songs have come out of messages and teaching of Hillsong Church. Timing is everything… It took over 20 years for Hillsong Church to produce a kids album. I can tell you over the years plenty of people would have wanted to see music for kids produced, but I can tell you, in God’s timing he will make a way and the resources and backing will take it far above anything you could have hoped or dreamed.

P.S. Congratulations JavaJ, I will be sending you a copy of Hillsong Kids Ultimate Collection when it becomes available! (Matt, you were close).

P.S. Of course Jesus/the Bible/God etc. are all a part of this list, but like God’s thoughts are higher than yours and His ways barely comprehensible to your finite mind so is his position on this list.

It’s new music Tuesday! Which didn’t exist at this blog until I just wrote those words.

My Bro Nick is a brilliant graphic designer who works for a Church in Christchurch NZ called Majestic… (quick trivia, I was dedicated there in 1978, although it was in a different location).

I would link to his twitter here, but he seemingly likes to read more that tweet!

Anyway, with the help of Nathan Phillips (now back in NZ) who was with us in Hillsong for a couple of albums, notably Tell The World (2007) they have produced their first album- In The Future, and you can download it for FREE.

I love it!

depakote prescription prices alt=”Majestic Youth In the Future” width=”300″ height=”292″ />

It’s really cool, so you need to download it right now.

I am slammed at the moment which means the blog is last on the list for any meaningful content.

One of the reason’s I write this blog is because I see it as a barometer for my own development/creativity/learning. If I am not writing the blog it’s either one of two reasons:

1. I’m not growing/learning/thinking

2. I’m slammed

In this case… it is a season of the full calendar. My iPhone has never had more appointments to keep me on time with and we are filming/writing like crazy for Hillsong Kids Big Curriculum.

But even in this season I am still learning/growing… coreg 80 mg so instead of create content, I am just gonna steal and link to it

So for today’s inspiration check out this episode of TheOoze.tv

Andy Crouch talks about one of my favourite metaphors for faith… music, specifically Jazz and Classical…

(You should check out some of the other episodes, it’s turning into a great series!)

Dave Out

Melisa Bester is a part of our Hills Campus at Hillsong Church. She has sung on a number of Hillsong Kids albums and has now turned into a teenager with some serious talent… now I’m not saying I made her what she is today and that if it wasn’t for the opportunities to lead worship she had years ago she may not have even made it this far… just remember me when you’re famous Melisa!

The compare vitamin prices reality is, she has a gift from God and her family have nurtured it and developed it.

Here is her first music video Wanna Be Free

Her album is out soon… or may be out now… can’t seem to find anywhere to buy it?

I love seeing our kids grow up with confidence and pursuing their dreams!

GMA Awards were recently announced, Tell the World is nominated for:

CHILDREN’S MUSIC ALBUM
album; artist; producer; label

Absolute Modern Worship for Kids 4; Phoebe Ebensberger, Emily Ebensberger, Abbie Ebensberger, Joseph O’Brien, Timmy O’Brien, Mikey O’Brien, Abbie Chapman, Meghan O’Brien, Adelaide Bauer, Kristen Bauer, Karissa Selby, Emma Rose Williamson, Tyler Beiden, Garrett Williamson; Chance Scoggins; Fervent Records
All clonidine sales God’s Animals; TJ McCloud; Brandon Scott Thomas, Eric Wyse; Martingale Music
David: Shepherd, Psalmist, Soldier, King!; Bible StorySongs; Paula King, Catherine Walker; Bible StorySongs
Shout Praises Kids – I Am Free; Jeff Sandstrom, Kurt Goebel, Stephen Leiweke, Jeremy Redmon; Integrity Music
Sleepytime Lullabies; Praise Baby; Matt Huesmann; Big House Kids
Tell The World; Hillsong Kids; Julia A’Bell, Gio Galanti, Andrew Crawford, David Wakerley; Hillsong, Integrity Music

The awards are on April 32rd!

See the full list of nominations here

So one cultural change is happening right now because of the changing face of the music industry — and I LIKE IT!

To our children growing up, music is FREE. You download it and chuck it on a iPod and it didn’t cost them anything. Sure they may have paid for it on iTunes, but the overwhelming majority probably got it from a friend who knows how to get it online.

Now that obviously leads to problems in the Music industry, their entire model of income is based on sales of music… an artist may never have to tour ever in order to make a good living!

But it has all changed, and now we are seeing evidence of that all over the place. Madonna clonidine 0.2 mg is no longer with Warner Brothers (Music Label) but with a touring/promotion company LiveNation.

So… in New Zealand where I grew up, it was a very rare occurrence to see a big name come to town. I remember Michael Jackson, and AC/DC… not sure what that says about my musical tastes. And forget about any Jazz musicians! It just wasn’t worth their while to travel to Middle Earth, when they could tour Europe and the U.S. and make a fine living!

So I am excited to see this change, a couple of weeks ago I saw Five Peace Band play at the Opera House, a group I could have never hoped to see even a few years ago! And in just one weeks time Brad Mehldau at the Basement in Sydney! My favourite Jazz pianist!

So I am excited, musicians and artists are touring more than ever before, which may not mean much if you live in the US or Europe with millions of people or you like Pop music whose big names can tour everywhere (i’m going to see coldplay when they get here, so I like me some Rock and Roll)… but for little old me who developed rather minority music tastes I am like a kid in a candy store!

In the future, the music may very well be free, and the experience may cost you!

What does this have to do with children?

It may suggest that culture in the future may place value upon the personal connection with those who inspire us even more than now!

In the fullness of time all will be revealed.

But… it does mean they think differently to me… and to you.