Kyle O'Neal

I am the worship leader at The Well in Cartersville, GA.

1. My pastor, Andy Postell.  I have the best pastor, boss, mentor, friend in the world.  Andy and I have been working together and dreaming about what The Well would look like since January of 2008.  Very early on we realized that we were almost complete opposites and we teased that he was the old and I was the new.  But we also realized early on that this meshed together so perfectly and we were a great team together.  Not only is Andy a great communicator on Sunday mornings, but he is a great pastor to the church where he truly cares for its people and he is a great leader.  Andy is one of those people who have those deeply “in-tune” relationships with Jesus.  It is incredibly easy to follow him in leadership because I know that he is following Jesus in all that he does.
2. Our Staff.  Where the church is still less than a year and Andy and I are the only full time staff, we have the best volunteer staff in the planet.  Claire Postell, Andy’s wife heads up our kids area and does a phenomenal job.  On Sunday mornings, the kids have their own environment specifically created for them.  Claire is a master at creating a cool set design for the kids and they eat it  up.  Dee Dee Burson assists Claire and also heads up our nursery.  As soon as she came on board she up’ed the game.  She’s really been the key to taking our kids ministry to the next level.
3. The people who come on Sundays. The people who come on Sundays are the coolest people in Cartersville.  About 60-70% of the people who come to The Well haven’t stepped foot inside a church since they were kids.  That’s so awesome to me.  We advertise that we are “church done differently”.  For some reason these people give us a chance and they see that church doesn’t have to be about traditions with lost meanings or all about politics or full of hypocrites.  Church is about the body of Christ coming together to lift high the name of Jesus and recharge us so we can punch Satan in the throat Monday through Saturday.
4. Our Serve Teams.  These men and women are what makes The Well happen every Sunday.  These are the people who come in on Saturday afternoon and setup the building to create our environment for worship.  These are the people who get to church early to greet you at the door with a smile.  These are the people who serve you coffee and breakfast before the service starts.  These are the people who care for your kids in the back so you can worship freely.  These are the people who make The Well what it is.
5. Excel Christian Academy.  I wholeheartedly believe that we have the best portable facility for a church in Cartersville, Georgia.  When we first launched, we met at the Cartersville Library and we out grew it extremely fast.  God opened doors just at the right time and gave us Excel.  We went from a main worship room that could hold 100 standing room only, 1 kid’s room that we have to divide with curtains, and loading everything into trailers…to a building with a main worship room that could hold 500 easy, the possibility of 7 kid’s rooms that most of them we can leave set up, and a storage room that we no longer needed trailers.  This building is going to allow us to grow into multiple services and reach many more people for Jesus.
6. Our Band.  I have the best and most talented friends out there.  I have the pleasure of having my closest friends come and lead worship with me every Sunday morning.  From day 1 of our very first preview service we started with a phenomenal band.  We didn’t want to work up to excellence in our worship so from the start we’ve had the very best.  This was one of the best decisions we made early on as a church.
7. Our Tech Team.  Like my last post, excellence attracts excellence.  When we started off with a great band, people wanted to get involved.  God led some of the most talented people to The Well.  Jacob Burson produces most of our Sunday morning services and creates all of our videos.  From the very beginning stages of the church, our videos looked extremely professional and as if we were a church many years older.  Styx and Todd Green run sound for us on Sundays and we couldn’t ask for better sound engineers.  These 2 guys know their stuff and make us sound incredible.  Greg Henderson, Zakk Nunn, Courtney Smith, and my wife, Melissa, rotate on our lights and video systems.  These guys came to the table with zero experience in lighting or video but I would now rank them with anyone else out there.  They have taken this task and completely owned it.
8. Our Message Series.  We do some of the coolest series at The Well.  Andy and I meet pretty far in advance and look at a calendar and seek God on what kind of series to do make sure they are relevant to Cartersville, the time of the year, and the people that are coming to the church.  I really enjoy doing graphic design so this is where I get to be creative in that area.  I design all of our series graphics.  I also get to work with an awesome lady named Theresa Stevenson and come up with some really cool set designs.  We are slightly limited with the fact that we  have to set it up and break it down every Sunday, but we still do some neat stuff.  Check out our set design at VBS when we DIDN’T have to be limited.
9. LIFE Groups.  Technically LIFE Groups (small groups) haven’t launched at The Well yet, but Melissa and I were already involved in one.  Andy and Claire taught one at their house and Melissa and I taught one at ours.  Also during the summer we had bible studies by the pool called “Dive In”.  These will launch after our current series (Disciple) is over and it will change the church in a incredibly positive way.  LIFE Groups are where life happens.
10. Life Change.  This is the most exciting to me and why I love my job at The Well so much.  God is moving in incredible ways and blows our minds more and more each and every week.  This past Sunday we had 18 people baptized either reaffirming their baptism or as first time professions of faith.  WOW!  Life change is happening and in huge ways in the life of The Well.  I’m so excited to just be a part of it.

There were 2 nights that ring back in my memory constantly of while I have dated Melissa.  The first being our first date and the second being Valentine’s day. 

Our first date was at my apartment.  I had just ran into her at US Play about 2 weeks before and we started talking on the phone and texting a little and we kept saying we needed to hang out sometime. Then she ended up stopping by my apartment for about 30 minutes one night while I had some guys over to play Wii.  She just wanted to say hey and all so I walked her out when she left.  It probably sounds cheesy to say but when I said thanks for stopping by and gave her a hug, I just KNEW something was different.  I wasn’t sure what it was, but I felt a warmth in my heart.   Well, I somehow got around to asking her what she was doing for New Years and she said she is working until 9pm.  So I asked her what she was doing afterwards.  So we made plans to hang out after she got off and watch a movie.  But when I found out she hadn’t eaten dinner I told her I would make her some dinner.  So I went up to the grocery store and got some chicken and pasta and alfredo sauce and some sparking grape juice and everything else.  So when she came over I had it all laid out and ready for her.  We watched Dodgeball and watched my cell phone clock for the new year to come in.  At midnight, we said an awkward Happy New Years and toasted our grape juice.  After the movie, we ended up talking until about 4am just reminiscing on old times at Kennesaw First Baptist and our time growing up.  (For those of you who don’t know, we have known each other for 10 years or so.  We grew up in the youth group together at church.)  It was a night I will never forget.

Well for Valentine’s Day I went all out.  It was our first Valentine’s and I already knew this is the girl I was going to ask to marry me.  So on the night before I gave her a poem that basically said, “There are not enough ways to tell you that I love you, so I plan on using our first Valentine’s together to start telling you all the ways.”  So the next morning she woke up to a rose with a little note attached to it.  It read “I love you because you brighten my day.”  And all throughout the day there were roses wherever she turned.  I was always 2 or 3 steps ahead of her.  When she got in her car to go to class, there was one in her front seat.  When she went to class she got one there.  We met up for lunch at Subway and the guy that made our sandwich said “Oh ya…I think I have something else for you.”  And that rose read “I love you because you are so cute when you eat.”  That night we went to dinner at Provino’s and I gave her another rose before we went in.  Just everywhere she turned there was another rose with a “I love you because” note.  After dinner we drove out to Acworth Beach and took a walk around Cauble Park and on the beach.  We went out by the water and just talked and talked and talked.  The whole day was pretty special already but there was something extra special about our conversations at the beach that night.  It seems like that would have already been the perfect date, but there was more.  When we left there we went back to my apartment and I had dessert set up for us.  There were tons of tea light candles around and an empty vase on the table.  We put all her roses in the vase and I asked her to count them. 11.  “Oh…well, I have to give you a dozen since it’s Valentine’s and all.”  The 12^th rose said “I love you because…well, there are just not enough ways to tell you…so…” And I ran upstairs and grabbed another dozen that all had little notes on them saying “I love you.”  It was a pretty awesome night and another oen I will never forget. 

Well for my proposal I wanted to use a little bit of both of those nights.  Her favorite place to eat is The Melting Pot and I had actually never eaten there.  So we went to eat there and it was incredible.  I love that place now.  We had swiss cheese and white chocolate.  We didn’t even do the meat part and we were stuffed.  Afterwards, we went down to Acworth beach and took crazy pictures and just hung out.  We decided to walk along the beach and then all of a sudden…we stumbled across a bottle.  And it had a letter in it.  Little did she know it was the same bottle of grape juice from our first date on New Year’s Eve.  I had to distress it a little so she wouldn’t recognize it.  Here’s the bottle:

So I pulled out the letter and read it to her.  Here is that letter:

And I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.  It was pretty awesome.  I even had my buddy Jacob come down and hide in the bushes to film it.  Well here is that video:

Well that’s it.  She absolutely loved it.  And just in case you are wondering…she said yes.  Thanks to everyone who has said congrats to us.  We will be announcing an engagement party and wedding date real soon.  It was such a great night.  Here are some of the pictures we took right before and after.  The ones of her reading the letter was her re-reading it because she still couldn’t believe it all.

If you can’t see the video, go here.  And if you can’t see the pictures from the whole night, go here.

…was actually Friday night.  I finished up with all the vocals.  Then Saturday morning I went to hang out with my Dad for Father’s Day.  It’s always good to hang out with dear ole dad. 

Yesterday was the 4th preview service for The Well.  It went really smooth.  We had a great crowd and the band did awesome.  Anna Houston was our guest vocalist and she led on “See His Love”.  I will for sure have to have her back real soon.

Setlist
See His Love (Jesus Culture)
Famous One (Chris Tomlin)
Beautiful Jesus (Kristian Stanfill)
Amazing Because It Is (The Almost)

Oh ya…I have a couple new pictures from Revolution last week.  For those, click here.

I had all intentions of recording vocals tonight, but my throat was not up to it.  We even tried to do a song, but I wasn’t satisfied with the quality of my vocals.  But God knew what He was doing because it started thundering so we wouldn’t have been able to any way.  So instead we edited and cleaned up the parts of 3 songs tonight (Glorious One, I Adore You, and Be Thou).  Rob over at TennyTunes is so great to work with.  He does things a little more old school than I’m used but I’m learning a bit too.  I’m digging the sound of this cd.  I’m really excited about releasing it.  Funny thing is…I’m actually getting excited about recording the NEXT cd.

If you would like to pre order a copy of the cd, please email info@kyleoneal.com.  If you are a regular reader then you know already I’m praying for $942.  And also for those who don’t know, I’m releasing this as a digital release only.  Well, I’m selling the download cards for $5 each.  Buy 10 of them and help me come up with that $942.  Then you can give out the other 9 cards to  your friends.  But 10 cards would get me ahead by $50. 

By the way, I’m changing the site up and everything tomorrow night.  I’m probably going to postpone the release a little bit.  Maybe August.  We’ll just have to see how things work out.  I’m excited to see how God moves in this project.

Keep praying for $942.

We did bass and acoustic today.  It was alot of fun.  Brink nailed his parts.  I did my acoustic parts pretty quick too.  Then I went up to visit Melissa at work.

I think we are going to do vocals on Monday night.

Looking forward to leading worship at Revolution Church tomorrow morning.

Pray for $942. 

I readded things up last night and wow…I’m a little behind.  The studio is going to cost more than I had planned and mastering wasn’t even in the equation yet.  I’m praying hard that God will provide the money.  I had a really good friend of mine send me a text message yesterday saying he wanted to give me $100 towards my project.  That was awesome.  So putting that into the math, I need $942 more.  Please join me in praying.  I believe in praying something specifically so that’s why I’m praying for an exact amount.

We actually only did keys last night.  We kept it really simple.  Ruben really doesn’t get all that much room to shine (even though he is an AMAZING player).  We kinda just added laid back pads in the mix.

We start the last day of tracking today and it’s going to be a full one.  We’re going to start with Brink on bass, then my acoustic, and then my vocals.  My voice feels a little soar today so we may not get there.  I’m not sure.  But that’s the plan as of right now.

Please keep praying for us and please pray for $942.

So last night we tracked guitars.  What a night.  The record is coming together now.  Tucker and Joe nailed their parts.  We spent about an hour on each song to do better and best takes and to do different tracks on all the different tones.  After Saturday I will edit the video footage and make a studio update video for you guys.  Be looking out for that.

We went until 2am last night so I’m exhausted this morning.  But God is doing some awesome stuff in the studio with us and I can’t wait to share it with you guys.

Tonight I’m heading over to Revolution practice.  I’m excited about this Sunday to sing with Amy Winkles.  We always run into each other at conferences and what not, but we haven’t had a chance to sing together yet.  Can’t wait.

Well, we recorded drums today and it went great.  John-Michael rocked it solid and we did some GREAT drum takes for 5 songs, plus setup and micing in 4 hours.  Oh ya.  Styx was there to drum tech and he came in handy.  We actually used Styx’s tama starclassic for the session.  We ended up using most of his cymbals and a ride at the studio.  Styx also brought 8…yes…8 snare drums to compare and use.  But I will give him credit…we ended up using 4 seperate snare….for 5 songs!  Oh well.  Lol.

I’m excited about tomorrow.  Tomorrow we record Tucker and Joe’s electrics.  After we have those laid down we will be able to get a decent feel for how the album will sound.  Then it’s 2 days to “relax”.  Wednesday I have most of the day to actually relax and then it’s off to Revolution for rehearsal.  And then Thursday night I’m playing out at First Baptist Marietta for their Missions in Marietta project.  I’m planning on playing the new “God of this City” song for the first time.  I’m excited about that.  Well, I’m off to bed.  Thanks for all the prayers for us in the studio this week.

Well tonight we are going in and laying down the scratch tracks.  It will probably be me, Tucker, Joe, and Styx up there.  We are going to put down the scratch click, acoustic, and electrics.  For those who are not familiar with recording, sratch tracks are basically the tracks that the drummer will use to record his parts.  After the real recordings are tracked, the scratch tracks are just deleted.  Can’t wait for you guys to hear what we’ve got.  I plan on taking some pictures and POSSIBLY some video.  I gotta find a video camera first. 

This is going to be a busy week for me.  I am officially no longer at Ken Stanton, but I’m going to be working 2 days this week and 3 days the next.  Then it’s full time at The Well in July.  All kinds of stuff going on in June.  I’m excited to see how I will be completely exhausted to where I can’t do anything myself.  That way I can’t claim anything.  To GOD be the glory.