We have made a swift, but well educated decision to move the beef of this website. Well, you can’t say we don’t go all out as pioneers! Gee, I know it’s crazy. In April of 2006 we began utilizing the blog, podcasts, and RSS from this site to keep you posted on prayer needs, missionary adventures, etc. and now it is time to morph. We are not dead, and we are just as busy obeying Jesus as ever, its just that we have been learning so much this last year about communication and the web…and have come to some educated conclusions. Frankly, we realized that this blog was just not necessary to accomplish our goal to stay closer to those who pray for and watch our lives. We have come to the conclusion that good old fashioned personal visit, phone calls, letters, and emails will do the trick, and do it better.

Before you think we are poo-pooing RSS feeds, blogs, or podcasts…think again! We are launching 7 (seven!) right now at entertheworshipcircle.com, all of which are appearing even now on iTunes as new subscribable podcasts and vidcasts. Most of you connected to us at one time because of a Jesus moment–a song, a live show, a word, a teaching, and encouragement–we really want to remain encouraging and challenging for you now! This is not the place. EntertheWorshipCircle.com and Churchthink.com are the place, iTunes (search Worship Circle and find podcasts) is the place, even YouTube might be the place but not here…

Here are some helpful links, some tips, and a forecast:

1. Look for the paper newsletter to reappear in your box first of March right after our trip to Peru. Three times a year after that. If you don’t want it we will have to use the old fashioned telephone to say so: 719 633 2515.

2. You can email Robin or I anytime at robin @ robinpasley.com or ben @ benpasley.com and we welcome your notes. We will send you an occasional email from our personal email boxes once in a while for a variety of personal, and not form letter, kinds of reasons.

3. Our new podcast and media feeds include a Worship Circle Podcast, a Vidcast, a Techcast, a Churchthink podcast, a Premium Podcast, Premium Vidcast, and a Premium Churchthink Podcast…all of which will be appearing at iTunes over the next few days. Go to the Podcast page or the Backstage page at entertheworshipcircle.com to find out more. Even the Premium feeds are free until May 1st so check them out.

4. Much of the content of this site is moving, whether articles, giving links, progress reports, etc. will appear mostly at entertheworshipcircle.com and in many cases will be in the Store for free download or on the blog where you can sign up for email or RSS reader delivery!

5. Concerning donations, especially the online kind, we are reinstating our Paypal simplicity for one-time and recurring gifts. ClickandBuy was a nice idea for many reasons, but too many hidden problems arose and good people (like you Kyle) had terrible moments with that system and so in honor of your time we took it out back and killed it. These new giving links will appear here and over at the Worship Circle site. We will send good old fashioned giving envelopes out again soon so we can enjoy touching paper and writing little notes along with our letters and checks!

P.S. This did not happen because Robin accidentally erased my last post.

I love that the Father gives us place to start over each year…even if it is just a calendar date. It is often a marker for change. Like many of you probably do, Ben and I find time after Christmas to reflect on the previous year and talk about our hopes and plans for the new one that is upon us. We realized during that chat this year that 2008 was the first in 9 years that we would not be “building” something. Between 1999 and 2007 we spent most of our time, energy, or resource on building many things; a non-profit corporation, a missions organization, a network of ministers and missionaries, 2 boys, a house, a training facility and studio, multiple websites and business infrastructures, a record label, and 4 webstores. This year we are planning to enjoy the continuum of most of those things and all that we learned during their processes. We do have productive plans for this year…we just won’t be starting anything brand new. In 2008 we have some ministry trips out of the country (the 1st to Peru in Feb), 2-3 RV ministry tours with the boys, the release of the 2 new EWC albums that we recorded in Dec as well as finishing recording and producing the Village Thrift, circa 2008 (also an EWC release). That, of course, is just the visible work that we do. The business side of our ministry work, which allows for all of those exciting things to happen, keeps us busy in between those calendar dates. Speaking of, in an effort to share our duties a little more, I have taken on the privileged job of blogging here at the bluerenaissance site this year. I enjoy sharing our journey with you and am so thankful to have people who want to stay connected to us and pray for us. I am not technically minded but have just enough where with all to navigate this program…mostly. I did just accidentally erase Ben’s last post a moment ago (sorry, honey). So I look forward to giving you an insight into our world and work through my unique view point in the weeks and months to come. (P.S. The snowy picture is the view from our back door.)

This last weekend (and for the next two weekends!) Robin and I began our first committed time into writing songs for the new Enter The Worship Circle: Fourth Circle album! Yep, it is time. We are joining our friends Karla Adolphe, Caleb Friesen, Tim and Laurie Thornton, and Aaron Strumpel for this next adventure in the Worship Circle series. You are going to love it.

We are asking for those of you who pray–to pray for us to have deep, concentrated time to have conversations with God, to dig into the Psalms, to love each other and to play our instruments and worship. The next few weekends we are asking our local friends to help us by bringing food, helping us around the house, and keeping our boys as a way to take part in the next Worship Circle album. We are deeply thankful for our helping friends…love, love.

We wanted you all to see this. It is very important to us. Check it out and tell us what you think!

100 PORTRAITS PRESS RELEASE: September 12, 2007
DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE ON PDF

Subject: 100 Portraits Offers Groundbreaking Online Subscription
Tagline: Bold step for indie musicians: providing music in realtime via exclusive blog content

100 Portraits : Backstage Subscription “It is really two popular ideas rolled into one neuvo-burrito,” says Ben Pasley, half of the alternative rock duo 100 Portraits. The two ideas: the online magazine and the ever-popular blog. Beginning September 1, 2007, the band’s official website at www.100portraits.com offers a second level to their public blog containing creative content available only to paying subscribers.

The idea had been in the works since the fall of 2006 when Ben and his wife, Robin, began the process of reviving their popular musical identity, 100 Portraits, after taking a break to develop music for the popular series Enter The Worship Circle along with other pursuits. “We wanted to make music and engage our audience without putting all our eggs in the compact disc basket,” mused Robin when asked about why they have abandoned a traditional “release to CD” production route. “We have seen a massive trend in our own sales and in the music habits around the world toward MP3 players–the iPod for example. We think it is time we put 80% of our effort toward digital, 20% toward physical product and never go back to the opposite formula..it is the way of the dinosaur.”

100 Portraits knew they were on the right track when they read the article in the New York Times, Monday, March 26, 2007 titled “With CD Sales Falling, Labels Seek Deals With the Likes of Apple.” This article states the fact that digital sales continue to rise while album sales continue to fall (album sales falling 16% in the first quarter of 2007) and this is causing even the big label behemoths to shift into action signing new artist to “per song” deals instead of “per album” deals. This move lowers the risk by lowering the cost of releasing a new artist’s music. The article also claimed that companies like EMI and Warner Music Group are “considering a system in which fans would pay a fee, perhaps monthly, to “subscribe” to their favorite artist and receive a series of recordings, videos and other products spaced over time.” This is exactly what 100 Portraits had been planning for months.

“Look, it’s not that the album will ever die because too many great artists and too many great music experiences must be heard in an album form, but right now people are grabbing song-at-a-time from iTunes and building their own playlists based on all kinds of preferences…not just the preference of the artists,” Ben said in defense of their pioneering effort. The same Times article supports Ben’s position with the assertion that “individual songs sales (the 99 cent download) account for roughly two-thirds of all music sales volume in the Unites States,” and that does not include other bite-size forms like ring tones.

100 Portraits had to reach outside of the U.S. for help in developing their online subscription service because the technology and business model is so new. ClickandBuy, based in Germany, is the money processing giant that handles all of iTunes in Europe where people are more likely to buy with alternative currency forms and methods like cell phone billing (SMS), and now they handle the payment receipts for 100 Portraits as well. The rest of the web build required help from a team of designers and thinkers from the U.S. to the Ukraine created a unique digital download store that sells both digital and physical product in the same shopping cart (like iTunes and Amazon combined), and provides the customer with a simple interface to subscribe to the premium blog content.

If digital product and digital delivery are the majority future of the music industry then 100 Portraits are some of the first pioneers to get on that bus with real commitment. Maybe it is because independent musicians have to fight and dream harder to build a working career than those attached to large marketing machines, or maybe it is because they are agile enough to move toward the market’s future before anyone else–either way digital subscription services are coming, and they are going to be a powerful new force in music.

Want to try the 100 Portraits : backstage subscription? It is very simple. Go to http://www.100portraits.com and click on the “Go Backstage” link at the top of the page, fill out the ClickandBuy payment form, and you then you can surf to pages and download links in the 100 Portraits blog that only subscribers can see! $4.95 gets you a huge load of product as a monthly subscriber, and $29.95 is a subscription that lasts all year. Presently, there is over 700Mb of live recordings, vintage audio, new songs, and video material available to new subscribers in higher res than iTunes audio, and in forms that you can copy and transfer without restriction.

100 Portraits background bits:

• 100 Portraits formed in 1993 with Ben and Robin Pasley writing and performing
• World drums, alternative guitars, folk ideas, and rock sensibilities put them in a unique musical class
• Their first two video releases won Silver and Bronze Telly Awards
• In 1999 they started the record-breaking series Enter The Worship Circle selling over 100,000 units to date
• Enter The Worship Circle was named in the Top 5 worship albums of all-time by Relevant Magazine

Here is an example of some of 100 Portraits’ premium content:

100 Portraits House Concert
March 2007, Ken and Lori Janke’s home, New Haven, CT, MP3, 80MB, 88minutes We got the whole show for you, unedited. How about that!? Todd Berger did open for us that night, and I will put that up as well, later, but for now get a taste of us trying to learn the rhythm of the house show early in 2007, after only playing a few opening numbers for Jacob and Lily in Colorado. I think this was one of our very first full house concerts…” You will need to subscribe to download it, but you can visit their public blog for excerpts anytime!

DOWNLOAD THE PRESS RELEASE ON PDF

Parked in a little RV retreat near Knoxville, TN….we are on our way home. We drove about 5.5 hours yesterday from Charlotte and we will continue this afternoon. It takes several days for the Bounder to make its way across America at a blazing top speed of 59mph, but hey, it is moving along and we are enjoying each day unwinding our trip with one another and cooling our jets from one of the biggest summers of our lives. I can’t remember a summer more demanding and all consuming since the summer in Atlanta in 1996 as we played venue after venue during the Olympics summer games…