From 28 to 30 March, 2017, the Virtual Alpine Observatory project (VAO) will host an international symposium to present its latest findings and encourage networking activities.The symposium will be held in Bolzano, Italy, and will include scientific presentations.

Alpine high altitude research stations contribute significantly to the monitoring, understanding, and forecasting of processes in the Earth system. Their exposed location creates almost ideal conditions for the investigation of many physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere, geosphere, cryo- and hydrospheres, and biosphere. The Virtual Alpine Observatory project supports the research activities of the alpine high altitude research stations by aggregating their measurements and performing joint research projects. VAO is contributing to the Alpine Convention. Access to other data and to high performance computing facilities creates rare research opportunities.

The symposium provides an ideal forum for obtaining up-to-date information about the latest developments, exchanging ideas, identifying future trends, and networking with the international high altitude research community.

More information on sessions & registration here: http://www.bayfor.org/vao-symposium-2017

In a competitive and saturated industry like music, it often gets hard to distinguish exactly what is needed to thrive. Income is not always stable ... Read more

The post The Top 5 Qualities You Need To Be a Successful Musician appeared first on CMUSE.

Violinist Joshua Bell teamed up with Sony as they unveiled a new virtual reality concert experience for classical music fans. Using a Playstation VR headset, ... Read more

The post Can virtual reality give classical music a boost? appeared first on CMUSE.

This is the first of a three-part series on team building. The ideas are simple, but the why behind the what is the secret sauce to growing a solid team. Like most people reading this, I’ve made mistakes. And those disasters have forged the conviction that we can’t be in ministry without being radically committed to loving Jesus and his church more, and on a daily basis.

Keep Jesus close, make sure that your family always takes the right priority (more on that in the future) and be willing to make your church better.  Notice I said better, not different. 

Better, Not Different

One of the biggest complaints I hear from worship pastors/leaders is that somehow, they have found themselves in a church that they really don’t like. 

They don’t feel appreciated by their lead pastors. 

They don’t like the weekend worship experience. 

They don’t like the people. 

At the end of the day, there is so much complaining that I am left scratching my head wondering if they even love Jesus.  If this is you, take some time to pray if you can make your lead pastors vision for your church come alive. If you aren’t in agreement, you may be in the wrong place.  Do yourself, your family and your people a favor and get connected with someone or something that is complimenting to your convictions and your philosophy.  God created you to be you, but we are servants before leading anything. Some of us carry the responsibility to make things different.  Most of us don’t.  Know your place.  Is it your burden to change things? …or is it your job to make things better.  Talk to your teams about this.  This is a fantastic “clarity” question that will free up your bandwidth.

Is it your burden to change things? …or is it your job to make things better.

OK, that is my soap box! ☺  As I give you these three helpful tips, it’s important for you to know that these are just tools.  You can’t fake or replace strong spiritual foundations of ministry leadership.  Love Jesus and use tools and resources to LOVE His PEOPLE better.  We try to change people or churches.  But what I’ve found is that when you develop people, things change. 

But what I’ve found is that when you develop people, things change. 

So, if it’s our job to make things better, what are some ideas that we can do to commit to improving? 

1. Develop a leadership pipeline

Developing a leadership pipeline is a helpful tool to bring clarity to “who’s responsible for who and who’s responsible for what”.  It’s really difficult for a worship pastor to carry the burden of a ministry on their shoulders alone…and they shouldn’t. I don’t have to tell you that the apostle Paul makes it clear that we are called to empower people to do the work of the Kingdom, not do it all on our own! (Ephesians 4:11-13) We also get a peek into Moses' anxiety in Numbers chapter 11, where he's at his wit’s end and well over his capacity. The Lord tells him to gather 70 of his most trusted and responsible people. Moses brings them to the "tent of meetings" and the Spirit of the Lord pours over them.

God helped Moses build his team. He will help you build yours.

A leadership pipeline helps you identify your 70 (or even 7 figuratively speaking). This is the pipeline our church utilizes.  

How this works:

In this chart, we document how responsibility falls within a team.

• An assistant is the first place in which we invite someone to be developed as a leader.
• A leader is the first level in which a person is responsible for a team.
• A coach is the first level in which a leader is overseeing other leaders.
• A director is responsible for directing a particular team.
• A pastor is responsible for care, culture and vision.

My favorite area to develop is our coaches. In worship ministry, I am so lucky to have some of the best coaches.

Here's how this role works:

Jordan Hicks is my guitar coach. He is responsible for developing all guitar leaders, recruitment and assimilating guitarists for all of our campuses, adult, youth and kids’ teams. He's responsible for all communication and administration for this group as well. Because Jordan is the leader I've poured into, he completely understands my values, our church’s values and culture, and our end goal. He's a volunteer, but he brings a priceless value of leadership and excellence to our church. Our worship leaders never should worry about who they are leading with. We are spoiled because of warriors like Jordan. He's just one example of Ephesians 4 coming to life in our ministry.

I grew up as a jazz musician—tenor sax. I loved John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. C’mon somebody!  I was in high school when I first played in combos with some older pro musicians in our city. We started playing a blues tune when one of the guys stopped me and said, “In the words of Miles Davis, man…you can’t play blues because you haven’t hurt enough yet.”  Apparently, I lacked any sense of emotive playing ability as a teenager. And I hadn’t hurt enough yet. 

If playing jazz and blues is an expression of pain and hurt that we’ve experienced, then singing worship music is an expression of the HOPE we know. We can’t and shouldn’t do this alone. Lean on your team. Empower them. 

I am excited to share with you the next two tips over the next few months. You’ll be able to find them right here at allaboutworship.com.  If you have questions about developing your leadership pipeline, you can email me at mike@worship.coach.

For free development resources, check out www.worship.coach.

Over the last few months we’ve tackled the topic of TEAM BUILDING.  As much as I would love to feel as if we have this one nailed, we don’t.  TEAM BUILDING is a muscle that every leader needs to continue to develop.  It’s easy to let this one slip away from us! Just when we start to feel like we are getting on top of this, something changes.  A vital team member leaves.  A leader needs to take on the responsibility of a different area.  Your best guitar player gets hired as the worship pastor at another church.  These are all real-life situations that happen in even the best teams.  They will happen to yours as well.

In our “Month One” blog on team building we presented the IDEA of developing a Leadership Pipeline within your worship ministry.  This IDEA helped support that idea that building an EMPOWERED TEAM is a powerful Kingdom tool.  “Who’s responsible for who?” and “Who’s responsible for what?” are two of the most important questions that needs to be answered in any team environment.  When you lead a team with clarity and spread out the responsibility for others to own your team, you ignite growth opportunities that might have went unnoticed. 

In “Month Two” we presented the idea of “Making Recruitment and Assimilation a Normal for Everyone”.  So many times, I bump into Worship Leaders and Pastors that feel the very unfair burden of building ALONE.  With this IDEA, we present the notion that every team can build better and faster when the team members who are on the teams are your best recruiters.  Make this a normal practice.  At my church, we practice asking new team members to “bring one” with you.  We have found that by making this a standard practice at ground level, we never have to ask for participation from the 10,000-foot level.  Whatever is visible is what replicates.  Empower your best leaders to build.

So here we are. Month Three.

Idea #3. Clearly Identify and Communicate Simple On-Ramps.

I love my city.  I live in Lincoln, Ne.  Home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  I love the youthful spirit and progressive nature of our city.  I have even grown to love and cherish the special college football atmosphere that engulfs our city on game day.  It’s addictive to say the least.  But one thing that I am not a big fan of is traffic on game day.  There is one primary road that leads into Lincoln and over 90,000 fans make the trek to our city on game day.  There are probable more if you include tailgaters.  THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM: The roads infrastructure needs to be able to support the traffic flow to the desired destination.  If there are too many confusing pieces of communication, it would put our city into emergency mode and have catastrophic effects.  I mean, the world might come to an end if people missed a Cornhusker Football Game! (No, but seriously) ;)

Having clear and simple communication about “what to DO next” can make or break your teams culture. 

Every month I host a worship leaders round table in Omaha Ne.  At this round table, Worship leaders from multiple different denominations gather for friendship and peer coaching.  These leaders have become family and they are amazing.  We discuss a wide range of worship ministry issues.  One topic that comes up regularly is “attracting the right volunteers”.  If a leader starts to pour their heart out to me about how they can’t get enough volunteers, I always ask one question to start the conversation.  “Can you tell me about your on-ramp?” This might sound overly simplistic, but what I have found is that sometimes we make it more complicated than it needs to be or we haven’t identified the answer to the most important question at all.  Every leader on your team, in unity, needs to be able to answer this question with clarity and simplicity.

 THIS IS THE QUESTION

“Where do I go and What do I do?”

 Having clear and simple communication about “what to DO next” can make or break your teams culture. 

 Here are a few suggestions when it comes to identifying your onramp into your ministry:

       1.     KEEP IT SIMPLE-

Keep it simple in language and communication.  Your “on-ramp” shouldn’t be riddled with complex forms, interviews and assessments.  Not yet anyways.  Create an “on-ramp’ that just answers the question, “where do I go and what do I do?”.  Worry about next steps later.  But for now, getting a “willing one” to show up is your biggest win. Make it simple for them.

For example, I person asks about playing guitar on the worship team.  Any leader in your department should be able to have the same simple answer. ”I am so glad you are interested!  We host all our new volunteers on Monday Nights at 6:30pm!  Would you be my guest?!”

       2.     USE WHATS ALREADY WORKING AS YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD-

­What is already working in your church?  Do you have a rehearsal process that is spot on?  USE IT!  Is God’s presence so thick in your weekend worship services that lives are being transformed?  USE IT! I’ve made the mistake of overthinking and over programming.  I’ve launched the “extra” visitor’s night or the quarterly worship night with the intentions of attracting new people.  Sometimes those things work.  But the problem is that even though they may be effective, it takes a long time for those events to represent the culture and team that we want people to be attracted to. 

Identify what’s already working and utilize those moments to “on-ramp” your team.

        3.     KEEP IT CONSISTENT-

Nothing can steal the wind out of the sails of progress like a good dose of inconsistency.  If you “welcome” new team members on Monday nights, keep that consistent for a season.  If you “welcome” new people to your choir rehearsal and you celebrate leaders that brought them, don’t change that unless you are communicating change.  Consistency, on this point, allows us the opportunity to get buy in from our team! Consistency builds reliability. Consistency gives our leaders tools to build with.  (Side note:  We will be talking about “embracing change” and reinvention in the upcoming months.)

Consistency tells our teams that we aren’t building a kingdom that only serves us, but we are leading an army that can fight battles when we share the burden.

Identifying your “on-ramps” could be a simple strategy that could help you engage people better.  Below is a sample of an “on-ramps” document that I created for our kid’s ministry at our church.  This idea isn’t just for worship/creative teams, but for everyone.

It is essential that you clearly communicate the “WHERE/HOW” to START whenever you are building teams.  Keep your communication clear and simple.  Try utilizing opportunities that your church is already doing well to interact with potential volunteers.  Lastly, be consistent.  Everyone should know the answer to this question: “Where do I go and What do I do?”.

 Having clear and simple communication about “what to DO next” can make or break your teams culture. 

Jesus, I pray today for the burden and stress that our worship leaders and pastors feel daily. We pray that you would continue to grow our capacity to shepherd well.  Thank you for entrusting us with big things.  We are honored to pastor your people.

Please feel free to use this resource or any that you find at worship.coach. Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions about these three helpful tips.  I am always glad to help. 

Michael King @michaelkingjr
free resources available at www.worship.coach

Over the years I have found myself in the midst of teams, as well as leading them. Here are some of my thoughts around qualities that make a great worship team member. 

1.  THEY UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE AND POWER OF UNITY

They champion the vision of the church, team and leaders, and they are responsive and vocal about it.

They esteem others! They celebrate the wins of the team and individuals.

They always speak well of church, team, and leadership. 

2.  THEY ALWAYS COME PREPARED AND READY

They learn the songs. They know the repertoire.

They maintain their instruments and gear at a professional level.

They always bring their best to the platform, and they understand that this is a part of their worship. 

3.  THEY ARE TEACHABLE

They are willing and eager to learn.

They don’t just wait to be told, they are pro-active in asking ‘what can I do better?’.

They have the maturity and humility to handle correction, even when it is something that they may find hard to hear.

4.  THEY ARE CONSISTENT

They always have an attitude of excellence.

They live, not without, but above their emotions.

They are always warm, friendly and kind. They are approachable and relational.

They are loyal, reliable and faithful.

5.  THEY PRAY AND READ THEIR BIBLE

They have a devotional life of their own.

They prioritise their relationship with Jesus.

They are regularly in prayer and the word of God

They are a worshiper!

For more articles by Dan and the C3 staff, visit www.c3music.com/blog/. 

The Boston Red Sox offseason is expected to be full of moves. The Red Sox extended a qualifying offer worth a healthy $21.05 million to Nick Pivetta. While surprising, the decision by the Red Sox regarding Pivetta could end up being very shrewd, as The Boston Globe's Julian McWilliams explained alongside Jahmai Webster during Monday's episode of NESN's “310 To Left” podcast.

Tony Rivera presenta la Biblia para la Guerra Espiritual, una poderosa herramienta que combina las Escrituras bíblicas con extractos de reconocidos autores expertos en la materia como: John Eckhardt, John Bevere, Iris Delgado y Kim Daniels.

The stats suggest that well more than half of young people will leave the Church after they leave their childhood Christian home. I’m convinced that the major reason for this is a lack of learned and modeled engagement in the deeper spiritual life on the part of parents and kids. Mom and dad, you and I will go to incredible lengths and allow our kids to endure incredible difficulties to guarantee high test scores for college, to pass driver’s education, but why aren’t we urgently guiding them...

Not everyone has a nice, big yard to stretch out in while sheltering in place from COVID-19. But maybe you don't need one. People are using virtual spaces to live out the real experiences they miss — like coffee shops, road trips, even building your own house on a deserted island, or Walden Pond. In a world where we're mostly confined to our homes and Zoom screens, does the line between virtual and real-life space mean much anymore?

Original Air Date: May 16, 2020

Guests:

Mark Riechers — Tracy Fullerton — Simon Parkin — Jane McGonigal — Donald D. Hoffman — Suzanne O’Sullivan

Interviews In This Hour:

There's No Pandemic In Animal Crossing — I Went To The Woods To Level Up Deliberately — The Most Boring Video Game Ever Made — Want to be Happier? Turn Everyday Tasks Into a Game — How We Fool Ourselves With The Concept of 'Reality'

Further Reading:

NYAS: Reality Is Not As It Seems

Eight philosophies that will help you as an individual—and as a business owner.

RectorSeal continues to press forward on the acquisition trail. On Feb. 6, RectorSeal announced the acquisition of Dust Free indoor air quality products.

The Texas Lathing & Plastering Contractors Association’s Annual Convention and Trade Show will be held on June 11-13. Its 72nd Annual Convention will be at the Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas.

Registration is open for the fourth 24 Hours of Concrete Knowledge, a free, virtual conference organized by the American Concrete Institute that will begin at 2 p.m. EDT on July 9.

Imagine training employees with a virtual reality, audio-visual headset that puts them on the job, inside a realistic house, with saws buzzing, hammers tapping and birds chirping. That is the concept behind an industry-leading virtual reality training program sponsored by Owens Corning.

One of the most prominent offsite construction award programs, the Building Excellence Awards showcase the projects that best demonstrate the design flexibility, long-lasting energy performance and resiliency of SIPs.

The Structural Insulated Panel Association announced the winners of its annual Building Excellence Awards, an off-site construction awards program that recognizes outstanding residential and commercial projects.

Ideal for EIFS and direct-applied, 2209MESH Corner Bead combines Plastic Components’ reliable PVC corner bead with fire- and alkaline-resistant, 4.5-ounce fiberglass mesh for a time-saving alternative to wrapping corners by hand with multiple pieces of mesh.

The eighth annual Lehigh Valley Let’s Build Construction Camp for Girls was held this summer in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. ATAS has been a supporter of this camp from the beginning, with monetary and material donations, along with several employees who helped in the planning and execution of the camp.

In its continual endeavors to keep its industry documents up to date, the association reviews the latest.

A series of webinars will confront the root causes of the racist riots that took place over the summer

Washington — The COVID-19 pandemic has “exacerbated” the challenges for OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration to use their resources to protect the safety and health of workers, according to the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General.

The charity also received a £5m grant from the People’s Postcode Lottery

Advanced collaborative robotics and AI boost productivity, ensure consistent quality and enhance ergonomics in the drywall finishing process.

Awarded to a social enterprise or charity that has significantly improved its income from its commercial activities in recent years

Washington — The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on workplace safety is among the issues explored in the AFL-CIO’s annual report on the state of safety and health protections for U.S. workers.

Washington — Longtime AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka died from a reported heart attack Aug. 5. He was 72.

Washington — “The nation must renew its commitment to protecting workers from job injury, disease and death, and make this a high priority,” the AFL-CIO says in its annual report on the state of safety and health protections for U.S. workers.

Pandemic-prompted shutdowns have forced a pivot in the way construction safety training is delivered

Workers exposed to poor indoor air quality may experience headaches, shortness of breath, coughing or nausea.

Boston — Ten common causes of workplace injuries and illnesses accounted for about 80% of U.S. employers’ overall injury costs in 2020, the 2023 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index shows.

Power Pusher has expanded the capabilities of its durable Super Power Pusher with a dual-motor model capable of moving up to 250,000 pounds for enhanced productivity that simultaneously reduces safety risks.

What are the sign/label options for harsh environments?

Washington – Outdoor workers need to get plenty of water, rest and shade this summer, OSHA is reminding employers as part of the agency’s annual heat illness prevention campaign.

In the past, being environmentally responsible could mean spending more money, but with a unique program from American Communications, Irving, Texas, that is not the case.

Cincinnati – Night-shift workers have the highest risk for sleep problems compared with all other workers, according to a recent study from NIOSH.

L’Aquila, Italy — A recently released study has linked sleep disorders and burnout to certain aspects of shift work among nurses.

Interface Systems announced WaBa Grill Franchise has chosen Interface Systems’ Restaurant Network-Technology-in-a-Box solution to transform its network and voice infrastructure in over 190 franchise locations.

Salem, OR — Students from Silverton and Hermiston high schools took first-place prizes in this year’s Oregon OSHA media contest to promote young worker safety and health awareness.

Washington — OSHA has scheduled a virtual public meeting to hear comments and suggestions on issues related to the agency’s Whistleblower Protection Program.

Washington — OSHA has scheduled a virtual public meeting for May 10 to hear stakeholder input on how it can improve outreach and training efforts for its Whistleblower Protection Program.

At ISC West 2023 at Booth #10037, i-PRO Co. Ltd., a global leader in professional security solutions for surveillance and public safety, further expands its multi-sensor camera lineup with six new dual-sensor models.

Mission 500, a charitable nonprofit organization engaging security professionals to assist families in crisis across the USA, will announce the winners of its annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Humanitarian Awards at ISC West today, Thursday, April 11 .The ceremony will take place at The Bridge - Booth #25059 from 4:00 -5:00 pm.