Today is the last day of 2008 and it’s been a big year for Our Rising Sound. We broke the 100 RSS subscriber mark, started releasing worship loops for free, created a Podcast for all our audio posts, Worship.com started publishing ORS content and we created relationship with a lot of worship leaders, pastors and bloggers. Below are the Top 5 viewed posts for 2008. Thanks so much for a wonderful year, thank you for being part of the blog and we have a lot of great articles ready to go in 2009.

1. Presbyterian vs Catholic Church Sign Debate
2. Illinois Winning Lottery Number on Election Day – 666
3. Man sues church for $2.5 million after Holly Spirit knocks him down
4. Top 5 things I miss about 90s worship
5. Michael Guglielmucci, author of “Healer”, exposed as fraud

I’ve received a quite a few comments recently that I’m deleting and not approving. So I thought it would be a good idea to lay out clearly what kind of comments are frowned up.

What will get your comment deleted or disapproved?

• Use of profanity. I don’t mind strong language, but if you’re cursing like a sailor you probably don’t have anything valuable to say. Keep it PG-13 please.
• Harsh rebuke or critique without any sensible argument or entertainment value. If you’re going to say how much something sucks or how much you disagree with something, all I ask is you spell it out in an articulate way or at the very least be entertaining. If you wanna be a jerk, than speak well or be funny, it’s that simple.
• Self Promotion Spam. I don’t mind if you want to promote your stuff here. I love helping others out as much as I can. But at least pretend to have read the post you’re commenting on. Throw me a bone here.

What won’t get your comment deleted?

• Thoughtful disagreement. I really don’t mind people disagreeing with me. I disagree with a lot of people, so I’d love to hear your beefs. Just be articulate, concise and don’t cuss.
• Relevant self promotion. If you have a post on your site that is relevant to the post here you’re commenting on, by all means, link away. Just make sure it’s relevant.

A big thank you to all my readers and subscribers. A few weeks ago we crossed the 100 subscriber barrier, a point I had hoped to reach by the end of the year. So thank you to everyone who has subscribed to the blog either via RSS or email and also thank you to our new podcast subscribers.

This success of this blog depends on you guys blog evangelizing and spreading the word. So if you know of friends, family, co-workers that might enjoy the blog please encourage them to subscribe. For all you silent subscribers make sure and comment so I can meet you, hit me up on facebook, stumbleupon or twitter.

Here’s to passing 200 in much shorter time!

Starting with the most popular post on this site, Presbyterian vs. Catholic Church Sign Debate, which has received almost 50,000 views.

This is too funny. I just preached on “Do Dogs Go to Heaven?” yesterday. Then I blessed the animals. If you’re interested, you can go on the following website and hear the sermon and see some of the pictures taken.

I’m anything but interested, but thanks. The fact that someone actually preached on dogs going to heaven and then blessed animals just makes me ill and angry at the same time. Here’s a great follow up comment.

…I’m a Catholic and I’m not even sure if I have a soul.

That’s just priceless. Now onto probably the best comment ever received. This comment was made by a Mr. Scot Longyear in response to me calling him out on playing a Michael Jackson song in worship in the 10 Commandments of Blogging post.

Listen up Thriller,

Billy Jean is NOT my love. Maybe you should take a look at the man in the mirror. I don’t think you want to be startin’ somethin’, even though it is human nature. I know you just won’t stop ’till you get enough, you pretty young thing. Leave me alone you smooth criminal. Why you wanna trip on me? Just remember the time and keep the faith. Above all, remember it don’t matter if your black or white. It’s easy as A-B-C.

Oooooh whooo

I don’t know how anyone can top that. However, Mike takes the prize for the most chilling comment ever. My post on if non-christians should be in worship bands apparently awoke some hellish anger in him. Although it doesn’t seem like that hellish anger ever goes to sleep.

I wouldnt be caught dead on a stage with bible thumpers! unless I were eating there babys

I love getting comments like this, it really is fun to chat with absolutely crazies sometimes. So I responded the only was I know how, sarcastically.

Me: Mike God bless you man, checked out your myspace, looks like you’re plenty busy polishing skulls and such so thanks for taking time out of your day for that valuable feedback. I’m going to add that to my list of criteria when trying out new band members, “Must not eat children.” Rock on brotha.

That’s the best of the best for now. Thanks to everyone who’s engaged in dialogue in the posts. I appreciate it, keep it up!

I’m pleased to announced that Our Rising Sound will now be contributing on the Worship.com blog. If you haven’t been over to Worship.com make sure and subscribe to the blog feed, there are a lot of great articles and a wide variety of contributors including, Bob Kauflin, Scot Longyear (I follow your lead) and the Resurgence. I’ll certainly need to dress appropriately and behave myself over there with that crowd. There is no change of content on this site, business as usual here, but now some of the posts will also appear on Worship.com.

I’m happy to introduce Brett Ernenputsch (pronounced “Erne-whatever”) our new contributor dedicated to everything hip-hop. Here’s what I know and love about Brett

1. He loves Jesus
2. He loves hip-hop
3. He loves this blog

What else do you need to know? Those are the three elements of a successful, abundant life. In addition to those 3 points he is one of the leaders at our church, is currently going through our Movement Internship program and has a bunch of tattoos which is enough street cred for me. I’m looking forward to Brett’s insight into the world of hip-hop, how it’s impacting or being impacted by the church and our culture.

Thanks Brett for bringing another musical dimension to this blog!

One thing that is critical for any successful ministry or blog is timing. Bad timing is absolute death to a blog, you have to be able to capitalize on what’s happening that day. So that’s why after these last couple weeks of news where it appears America’s economy is about to bring upon armageddon, families are filing bankruptcy and foreclosing on their homes, I’ve finally got the Our Rising Sound Store up and running!

With all that extra money you all have you can buy all sorts of men and women shirts, sweaters, stickers, hats, etc… What better way to show your patriotism and rebuild our economy than by sowing into the Our Rising Sound blog? OK maybe that’s not a good way, but it is a good way to look sexy and help me pay some bills. Look over on the right sidebar for the picture and link as shown below.

Pixels Preach is turning out some pretty sweet presentation layouts for you preachers out there. They also are running an Our Rising Sound ad so they are double sweet. Please go check them out, especially those who do presentations and/or sermons.