Music has always been an important part of Mark's life...
At the age of 16 (while still in High School) Mark started his first company by taking his car speakers out of his car and DJ-ing a friends birthday party (Mark was paid $50). Soon after that event Mark thought to himself that this would be AWESOME to get paid to do this full time so he purchased professional sound gear that would allow him to be part of larger events and be "more professional" while competing with the bigger companies at that time. After a year of DJ-ing with this new gear, Mark became the official DJ of David's Bridal and was EXTREMELY busy DJ-ing events all over the state of Oklahoma and Kansas. After 22 years and a whole lot more equipment upgrades Mark still DJ's a few events (mostly charity events and a few weddings). Mark's company is more of a production company and not just a DJ event company as he provides sound and lighting for concerts.
Mark is a devout Christian and has been able to use his talents and knowledge in sound and lighting to assist churches all across this amazing country. Mark was on staff at a large contemporary church in Florida as a stage concert lighting operator/designer. This church wasn't your typical traditional style church service that most of us grew up in - including myself. Often times we pushed the envelope on creativity to reach the unreachable who normally wouldn't step foot in a traditional style church.... This was almost like being in the mission field in a totally different country as Miami Florida is WAY DIFFERENT than Oklahoma. At this church Mark was given the opportunity to see thousands of people come to know the lord. I was serving our creator in an extremely fun environment and learning so much more than I had the opportunity through my DJ company. I will post a couple of my favorite videos to help paint the picture of this Church I was working at and the crazy stuff we would do.
This page isn't for anything other than to share with you some music that touches my soul and has been important to me.
This next video is a video that shows something that should be impossible... Packing an arena for an easter service. This song is very touching and shows that we are all just a bunch of sinners.
This church helped me and my family a lot... You see Florida is VERY expensive and I never made much as a part time lighting designer. I often freelanced as a tutor in photoshop or other design software. My wife was a nurse at a large (VERY VERY HUGE) hospital - 650 bed main hospital with a 100 bed ER - she commuted one hour each direction to and from work - it was everything we had living off of her income and paying rent for a condo in Florida. We never had an over abundance of funds but this Church would always do things like slip me a gift card to a restaurant when we literally had nothing - and it always came just at the right moment where you knew it was a God thing.
I have had the opportunity to either run sound or lights for some big names. Natalie Grant, Lauren Daigle, Kutless, just to name a few....
Mark always stayed in the sound/lighting industry gradually growing his company and staying involved in some of the largest churches in the world while also working in the IT industry and freelancing as a web designer for churches and businesses all over the US. Having the marketing/ web design knowledge allowed Mark and his company to hold self promoted concerts with minimal cost. Now Mark mainly focuses on web design and social marketing for a few clients but his sound and lighting side fall in line with marketing in general as he does voice -over work and radio ads, recording corporate events, sound for corporate events, MC/host for corporate award shows, etc. This all makes a big circle in the marketing world and has allowed Mark to learn marketing methods to benefit his company and help in landing him his current position as the Director of IT at Share Medical Center. The IT department is over marketing at Share Medical Center and the extensive knowledge Mark has allows him to oversee this process for Share Medical Center.
The church I worked at would often open with an edited-watered down secular song to drop the guard of people that have never stepped foot in church. Here's a song that I was part of and designed and ran the lights....
I love this next song... It shows that the church is bigger than you and me. This song is Amazing Grace sung in a different language in a different than normal way than you or I are used to. The reason why I love this song is it touches people all over the world which proves God is bigger than you and I and the entire world. The "church" is a world wide body of all Christians in numerous ethnicities and languages. When you can get over your differences with one-another often times something beautiful is made - like this song. I know Alva has a lot of passionate people with different views, and ideas on how Alva should operate. This song is encouraging every-time I hear it and shows that when we can come together- not matter how different we are - WE CAN accomplish something beautiful...
THE FOLLOWING SONGS ARE JUST A FEW OF MY FAVORITES... I HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM AS MUCH AS I DO.
