Kyle O'Neal

So yesterday we buried my grandmother from cancer.  This makes the 3rd grandparent that I lost to cancer is the past 4 months.  And we just found out 2 days ago that my wife’s grandmother has advanced pancreatic cancer.  I hate this disease.  One thing for sure that I can be thankful for is that all of my grandparents were followers of Christ and showed it in their lifestyles.  My Grandpa had just accepted Christ not too long ago and we got to see his last 2 years of a true new creation.  My Papa was the one who always taught me to read my bible.  He must have read it cover to cover 20 times.  My Grandma taught me how to be tenderhearted and loving.  She taught me by her example how to serve others and always put the people you love before yourself.  All of them lived great lives and accomplished great things.  But the best decision they ever made with their life was to follow Jesus and be a light to this darkened world.  I will miss you always Grandpa, Papa, and Grandma!

William E. O’Neal
June 18, 1933 – May 22, 2009
Lost life to leukaemia
Won by Jesus Christ

James W. Carson
December 28, 1933 – August 30, 2009
Lost life to lymph node cancer
Won by Jesus Christ

Emily B. O’Neal
September 11, 1934 – September 18, 2009
Lost life to a brain tumor
Won by Jesus Christ

Sites like Twitter and Facebook ask for a 1 line bio of who you are.  I LOVE the simplicity of that, but hey…this is a blog.  So here is that 1 line bio (Christ Follower. Husband. Father. Worship Leader. Church Planter.), defined…

I am a:

Christ Follower
I am a follower of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).  He is my King, my Savior, my friend.  I was brought into this world a sinner (Romans 3:23), Christ died for my sins (Romans 8:1-4), and I am now a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:16-18).  I deny myself, take up my cross daily, and follow after Christ (Luke 9:23).

Husband
I was married to the love of my life, Melissa Marie O’Neal, on December 13, 2008.  We are just now coming up on 1 year of marriage and I definitely married “up”.  Melissa is an amazing wife and she is what drives me to be a better person.  She is my best friend in the whole world and my partner in this thing called life.

Father
I am a father to be.  Our baby is now growing inside my wife (what a miracle of life) and we are expecting March 10, 2010.  This will be a brand new venture that I’m sure will bring new challenges but I can’t wait to strive to be the father that God wants me to be.

Worship Leader
I lead worship in churches all over the country.  I am currently the worship leader at The Well in Cartersville, Georgia and I absolutely love my job.  I work at 1 of the best churches in the nation and I’m just honored to be a part of what God is doing there.

Church Planter
Back in college, I stumbled (full story to come later) into church planting.  I helped start The Orchard in Cleveland, Georgia as their Minister of Music.  Then I went to West Ridge’s School of Church Planting and started Cross View Community Church in Rockmart, Georgia with Danny Echols.  I worked there as their Creative Arts Pastor.  Now I’m working alongside Andy Postell at The Well.  I love the thought of a new birth for a church and giving the people who were turned off by church the opportunity to think about church done differently.

Now…I’ve only designed and helped design a few websites (Kyle O’Neal, Kyle & Melissa, The Well, TenneyTunes Studio), but I in no way claim to be an expert on website development.  But I do have some thoughts on the way church websites SHOULD be.

Every church website should:

1. Have an easy to remember domain name. Your church website’s domain name should be simple and memorable.  When someone is interested in finding more information about your church, you want them to find that information easily without the use of search engines.  Keep it simple and make it easy to remember.  In promoting your web address, leave off the http://‘s and the www.‘s.  This makes your web address easier to remember and easier to say.
2. Be incredibly easy to navigate. People don’t spend a whole lot of time on a website.  They visit your site, search for what they are looking for, and then close the window.  Your church’s website should be designed so that people can find what they are looking for quickly and close out.
3. Have concise and current information. Again, people don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on a website.  No one wants to read a belief statement that they have to scroll down for hours just to read the whole thing.  Be short and concise.  Use the concept of Twitter.  Things should be simple, short, and to the point.  Also keep things current.  Too many times I go to a church’s website and the newest “Upcoming Event” was from 2 months ago.  Once I even saw one that was from 2 years ago.  That’s just insane.  If you are going to have a website that will not be maintained, then don’t integrate things like a calendar or a sermon mp3 player or photographs.  If your church doesn’t have someone to maintain your website and keep it up to date, then I suggest to make your website a simple information only type website.  It looks unprofessional to have old, out dated information on a website.
4. Be a tool to be used by the church. The people in your church are going to your website to find out something or use a tool on your website.  If someone is checking out your website before they visit your church, directions and service times should be easy to be used.  Church calendars should be clean looking and uncluttered for people within the church to keep in the know.  Every program or tool you use should be useABLE!
5. Be accessible on multiple platforms. Whether you’re excited about the change or not, Flash sites seem to be dying.  Flash sites take too long to load and they require a certain plugin to run and be view properly.  The art of CSS web design is taking shape and growing fast in popularity.  CSS  is also mobile friendly so your church members can access your website on the go.

(for examples of how I used this on our church website, check out discoverthewell.org)

This is why, at The Well, we:

• Print bulletins on high gloss paper and in full color

• Change our set design every series

• Place our friendliest people at the doors

• Arrive for rehearsal long before the sun does

• Do a full service run-thru to make sure there are no distractions

• Pay our musicians

• Pray without ceasing

(got this blog idea from Josh Bayne)

At our church, we use the Nashville Number System for chord charts.  This makes chord charts easier to use by making them universal for any key.  For example, a song may be in the key of A. One guitar player might play in the A shape while another guitar player may capo the second fret and play in the G shape.  In using the Nashville Number System, you simply call out the numbers and it is the same to both guitar players.  Another example would be if a musician learned a song in one key and a vocalist needed to change the key.  With the Nashville Number System you can easily change the key while the numbers remain the same. You will no longer have to transpose a chord chart. The Nashville Number System is a universal system for any musician.

To explain things a little better, I wrote an introduction to the system.

For the FULL introduction, click HERE.

So I just realized that I announced this on Twitter and on Facebook and on KyleMelissa.com but completely forgot to mention it on this blog.  Click HERE for the full story.
We’re due March 10, 2009.  Oh ya!!!!  Can’t describe what it feels like to know we’re going to be parents!

So it’s been quite some time since I’ve done the speaking part at any type of event.  Normally I’m the worship leader and I may speak in between songs or pray before the speaker or pastor comes up, but it’s been over 3 years since I’ve been the one who speaks.  Well this morning I led worship for Cartersville High School’s first FCA meeting AND spoke.  Scary…I know.  And here’s how it went down:

// Setlist //
Happy Day (Tim Hughes)
Your Grace is Enough (Chris Tomlin)
Mighty to Save (Hillsong)

// Message //
Well, I only had a few minutes to share so I will share it with you and try to be brief.  I told a story about the New Orleans area when Hurricane Katrina devasted most of the city.  A volunteer was driving around the city and helping everywhere he could.  As he turned his Jeep around a corner, he saw a little boy with his nose pressed up against a window.  Curious, the man drove that way to investigate.  He found the little boy nearly drooling over some donuts.  As he looked at the boy’s clothes and how dirty he was, he realized this boy was most likely homeless and maybe even orphaned.  So the man got out of his Jeep and walked up to the little boy and asked, “Would you like some of those donuts?” “Oh, yes sir!” the little boy replied excitely.  The man went inside and bought him a dozen donuts.  He came back outside and with a big smile, handed the boy the bag of donuts.  As the man was walking away the little boy asked, “Mister, are you Jesus?”

When was the last time someone mistook you for being like Jesus?

For students, it’s a brand new school year.  You’re going to meet new friends, new teachers, and you’ll have new classes.  And most of the people in the school are going to focus on being the best football player, the best cheerleader, the most popular, have the hottest boyfriend or the hottest girlfriend, have the most friends, or go to the coolest parties.  But what would our schools look like if the students decided that instead they were going to be like Jesus this year.  What would your school look like?  For adults, for others, what would your job look like?  What would your family look like?  What would YOU look like…if  you decided that each and every day you were going to strive to look like Jesus?

In Ephesians 5 it says, “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.  Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thankgiving…For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth)…Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is…Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Heavenly Father, I ask you right now to teach us how to be imitators of you.  Lord I pray that as the students return to their schools, and as others in their jobs, I pray that people will mistake us for being like Jesus.  And when we are around others, let our love overflow and be so evident, that people will know we’ve been with you.  Teach us, Father, to be imitators of you and to show this dying world the truest love they can ever experience, Your love.  In Your name I pray, amen.

So yesterday Oprah paid for the entire nation to have a combo meal at KFC to try their new Kentucky Grilled Chicken.

Since then, people are FLOCKING to KFC to get some of this free chicken. Drivethru’s around the nation are wrapped around the building. The website where you download the coupon last night was going so slow because millions of people were trying to access the page.

What if people were THAT hungry for Jesus?

What if people were FLOCKING to churches to hear about Jesus and know what all the talk was about? What if churches had cars wrapped around the building and we had to have overflow services outside? What if heaven slowed down a little bit because millions and millions of people were trying to find out who Jesus was?

Just a thought…and a prayer.

I also seem to get the greatest side notes in birthday cards so I figured I would share them with you this year…

From my Mom and Bob (stepdad):
Kyle, I love and miss you soooo much.  I can’t wait to see you in December.  I’m so excited that you are about to start your life together with your new wife.  Have a great birthday.  I wish I could spend it with you. 

From my Mema and Papa:
Papa and I love you very much.  I pray the Lord will use you to praise Him in a mighty way.  Do all things as unto the Lord.

From my Dad and Karen (stepmom):
We’re both very proud of you and we know God will do great things through you.  Follow His will for your life and He will give you joy that will amaze you.  We love you, Kyle! 

I was talk some pretty heart to heart things to my friend Tucker Richmond last night.  Tucker is one of my groomsmen in my wedding and plays guitar for me a lot.  We were sharing some heart felt stuff about worship and all kinds of personal struggles.  Well, this was still on my heart this morning as I woke up and I decided to go up to my bookshelf.  So I grabbed a devotional that I haven’t opened in years called “Out Cry: Vital Worship’s 31-Day Devotional”.  A friend of my dad’s friend Jamie Harvill (Integrity and Maranatha author of the songs “Ancient of Days” and “Firm Foundation” and lead guitar player for Don Moen) gave this book to my dad at an Integrity Conference….possibly to give to me.  I don’t remember.  None the less, Dad was a spokesmen for Integrity and he brought me all kinds of free stuff all the time.  Well this devotional really stuck out to me.  It was…raw…real…honest.  I dug it.

Well I had completely forgot about it until I picked it up last night.  Well I read Day 1.  It spoke about how worship is far more than just music.  It is all of life.  For those of you who don’t know me very well, I have a tattoo over my heart with the word “Surrender”.  This is my personal definition of worship…heart surrender.  Surrendering all of our life…every aspect…that, is worship.  

So I wanted more, so I went on.  Day 2 told the story about how Satan used to be the worship leader of heaven.  How he was perfectly beautiful.  And how he saw the worship and the praise and the love that the angels gave to God and he desired it.  He wanted the believed he deserved the worship of heaven.  Well we all know the story and know where he is now.  There was a great story too: “There was a man who challenged God and told Him that he could make a human being just like God could.  God said ‘Fine, let’s go.’  So they both reached down for the dust of the earth when God said, ‘No sir, you have to make your own dirt.’”  We need to refuse to let anything take the place of God in our heart and life.  For those of you who might remember when I played in the christian rock band, Dead Man Walking, our last cd had a song called “Illuminated” on it.  I wrote that song the night I first read that devotion.  The words to the chorus were:
Illuminate my life
I’ll let You dive right in
Let me touch Your hands
where those nails pierced Your skin
Illuminate my soul
Lord God, Son of Man
Allow me to be whole
and never thirst again
Illuminate my life

So…I still wanted more.  Day 3 was about the masks that we wear and how we need to ask God to uncover us to reveal Himself through us.  So then I came across Day 4.  It was about how we keep our little secrets bottled up.  And at the end, I had wrote a prayer, a prayer that had little to do with the devotion.  But on that night on January 27, 2002, I had wrote out a prayer that said,

Dear God, break my life open.  Crumble it to pieces so you can see everything I have bottled up inside.  Let my tears be wiped by Your hands that were pierced for my soul.  Let my tears of brokenness enter the punctures and mix with your blood so that I can be more of You and more like You and less of me and less like me.  Cleanse me.  Then restore me anew.  In Your precious Son’s name I pray, amen.

Now for you, this prayer isn’t that special, but for me, whoa.  The background info that you should know was this was just a few months before my world, as I knew it, literally crumbled.  I thought my life was perfect.  I had a wonderful family.  My mom and dad gave me everything I ever needed and most everything I ever wanted.  We lived in a beautiful house in Kennesaw.  I had a girlfriend that I had been dating for 2 years and had a good relationship with.  I had a great friends at Kennesaw First Baptist in which I had made in the 13 years I was there.  

Then it all crumbled.  It started by when we left KFBC.  We started going to Wildwood Baptist and I had to make all new friends.  And the friends I had at KFBC I lost some type of connection with…one that still is no longer the same today.  The relationship I had with my girlfriend took an ugly turn for the worse and we broke up.  My parents that I thought were perfect…sat me and my little brother down after returning from a cruise for their 20th anniversay and told us they were no longer happy and were getting a divorce.  They promised it would be clean and they just wanted to go their seperate ways.  2 days later, my mom told my dad that she had been having an affair.  This affected me in a huge way.  I trusted my mom.  The divorce sucked.  I wasn’t planning on having to tell a lawyer who I wanted to live with.  And then having to look her in the eyes knowing what she had done.  Since then I have forgiven her…just so you know and we are currently restoring our relationship.

To keep this post alot shorter and to avoid discuss current events still going on, EVEN TODAY, there are battles going on that are tearing me apart.  But I think that God still has some work to refine on me.  But I mean, that is what my prayer was.  And my prayer today is that He is ALWAYS refining me.  He has restored me anew and I pray that you ask God the same for yourself.  God has so much to offer and we get so amazed when we begin to see it.  Then we get stuck on that amazement and never go on to discover more.  Keep growing in Him.