I have been in a severe drought as of late. I can’t remember the last time I’ve sat down to be creative. For me, creativity pertains to writing music and making stuff up. I’m starting to think that I’m trying to hard. I’ve been looking for the conditions to be perfect: the lights to be low, soft music in the background, the water is warm and the bubble are soft and fluffy…wait, wrong conditions. But I think this mindset is killing me. I haven’t had any time to just sit and think and let my mind do what it does. It has been filled with so many other things, life, that I have crowded out all my other fun stuff. I realize that it is starting to affect how I am around other people. I don’t want to be that person who has all these regrets and wanted to do all this stuff and never did because of whatever reason. I’ve been stuck for a long time

My question to all of you(whether it be 200 or closer to the 6 that might actually read it) is this: What do you do to make sure that you don’t lose yourself in all the busyness of this world? It’s so easy for me to throw myself into things that I forget to take time to be me; the me that God created me to be. How do I work through that whole thing? How do you work through that whole thing? I have officially stumped myself and am wanting to hear your thoughts and ideas…

There may be some of you who read this and will have NO idea what that title means until I explain it later. Some of you will read this and got a warm, fuzzy feeling and went and grabbed your guitar just to play one. I had to pour through my music just now to find a good one to get in the right mood to write this. (Hosanna, Christy Nockels GREAT example)

You’re listening to a song for the first time and trying to get a feel for it and it gets to the end of a phrase and you think, “here comes 1. That makes sense…” But what do they do? They throw in that chord that automatically makes you want to close your eyes and throw up your hands in total worship. THAT, my friends, is the power 6th. That chord that you don’t expect to be there, but it just changes the feel of what’s happening. And we LOVE it. At first it felt so awkward to add that chord, almost taboo. Now today it seems that we look for it to be it certain places and when it’s not we are disappointed.

Power 6th, what have you done to us? We long for you, we sing you in our sleep. When we write music, we get super excited about knowing that you’re going to be there for us at the end of the measure. Nothing is the same anymore now that you’ve come into our lives forever. I don’t know if there are any worship songs out there today that you aren’t a part of in some integral way. Never leave us, Power 6th. Your light shines when all else fades (sorry, that song came on and I sacreligiously threw that in there. Forgive me, Hillsongians). Sincerely, worship leaders and musicians all over the place.

Here’s my set for this Sunday morning. A little bit new, a little bit ‘ol school.

Come Thou Almighty King (piano opening)

Sing to the King

In Christ Alone

Come Thou Almighty King

At Calvary (Response)

Pray for me as I am having a “Meet the New Guy” luncheon after the service. My plan is to lay out the next 3 months of the worship ministry at this church. I’ll let you know how it goes…

I thought about this the other day when I was sitting in my office. I was writing something down and because it was on my mind and I wanted to finish it, I wouldn’t stop for anything, even to go to the bathroom.  So I finished what I was doing, went to the bathroom and then came back. When I looked at what I had written right before I went to the bathroom, it was ridiculous! It was quite scattered and disjointed and I ended up having to write it all over again. I wasted time and almost peed on myself.

This got me to thinking though. How many other things do I try to rush through when I really have to go to the bathroom? Do I look back at those things and realize how much I messed them up before I finally went to the bathroom? So I started running through all the times that I’ve really had to go to the bathroom at some point during a worship set. I vividly remember rushing through a song set when I was playing for a church in Arkansas because I didn’t get the chance to go between rehearsal and the start of the first service. I then thought about how bad I must have sounded. After that, I replayed countless mornings where I may have rushed a song or cut out a song in a set because nature seemed to be calling while God was working.

Now I KNOW I’m not the only one who has dealt with this issue. Am I the only one willing to talk about it? I hope not…

Before yesterday, I had never really thought about this much because I do it all the time. I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday morning and she was asking me how the new job was going. We got to talking about the time that it takes for me to do what I do. She asked how long it took to choose the worship song set for a Sunday morning. Her guess was quite astronomical in my own mind. And as a result, she was quite surprised when she found out how much time I actually took to choose music for a Sunday morning. That got me to thinking after she left. Am I spending enough time putting together these song sets? Am I taking for granted what it is that I do and not putting quality time into creating a flow for worship? Is it okay that I’ve gotten this down to a point that it doesn’t take me as long as it used to? Could I do a better job of choosing music?

To all of you who have had to do this before, how long does it normally take you to choose music for your church services? Or for a retreat weekend? Do you go about it the exact same way you did when you first started out? What has changed for you? What has stayed the same? For the record, it generally takes me between 45 minutes and 2 hours to select and craft my song services.

When I thought about the idea to try and write daily, I knew I had a few things in my mind that I would want to share about being a leader in a ministry setting. I didn’t realize how many things would just happen giving me things to CONTINUE to write about.

Ms. Suzy comes ask you to talk and you sit down with her and she tells you that she doesn’t like the way Ms. Debbie is handling things and doesn’t appreciate the way she talked to her in last week’s rehearsal. She came to you because she didn’t want to make it a big thing, but this has been going on for awhile and she feels belittled by Ms. Debbie. It’s getting to the point where she feels as if she wants to leave the group. Everyone loves Ms. Debbie’s voice, but it is also well documented that Ms. Debbie tends to hold this over people….

I know that there are some of us who have dealt with our share of Ms. Debbies (the names were changed to protect the fact that I made this story up). Do you ever find it hard to stay neutral and not pick a side within the conflict? Have you ever found yourself getting a hard heart towards people as a conflict seems to never really go away? How do you handle that drama queen that always seems to be at the brink of a breakdown whenever something happens?

If nothing else, the Word is always right. It’s amazing how well that has worked for me. I have dealt with some interesting situations as a worship leader, and even ministry group director, but I’ve found that at the end of the day, it all comes back to the Word. I’m a rather emotional person and sometimes I can lead with my heart in a situation and as a result I jump to a place that I shouldn’t be when I’m dealing with conflict. I tend to do a LOT better when I stick close to what God is telling me to do and how he wants me to respond.

So, to wrap this one up, I’ve created a little grading system. Read the statement and give yourself a grade on a scale of 1-5; 5 being ‘I got this’ and 1 being ‘I need some major help’.

1. Staying a partial mediator within a conflict is no problem for me.

2. It doesn’t take much before I’m adding in my opinions about how to ‘handle’ someone I get riled up and ready to fight.

3. I bring in help when a situation gets bigger than I can handle.

4. When someone comes to me with a problem, Facebook and Twitter usually know about it before the person gets out of the room good.

5. I listen more than I talk when someone comes to me looking for help and guidance.

5-10 Stop telling people they can come to you with problems. Fix your own first!

11-15 You know enough to be dangerous. Not necessarily a good thing…

16-20 You are probably helpful more often than not. A little rough around the edges

21-25 You’re a conflict resolution guru. When’s the next conference?

Where did you end up? Are you a master of conflict resolution? Did I miss something?

In the wake of this big meeting I have coming up on Sunday, I thought I’d write about creating worship teams from the ground up. I will be the first to say that this isn’t easy. I’ve done this a couple times before, so you think I’d be ready for this new adventure. But these are new people and new personalities and you never know what’s going to happen. I’m going into this weekend’s meeting with great caution because I don’t know what’s going to happen. At the same time I’m going in with great anticipation of what God can do. We shall see…

In preparing for what’s to come with the worship ministry within this church, my goal is to not try and move too quickly. This church and its people have been here a lot longer than me. Coming in and making swift changes to the system is an EASY way to make enemies. The desire is to meet the people where they are and bring them with me. Dragging people is NOT fun. I have some great ideas and plans for now, the near future and then further out some more. If I can get people on board with where we are going, we are more likely to have fun getting there.

Have any of you out there started anything from scratch? What things worked? What things failed miserably? Share your thoughts.

Today I am working through a couple new ideas. For a while now I’ve been wanting to really branch out and do some things with other people. I have been a musical loner for quite a while and I’m thinking that doesn’t have to be. I know so many people that are so talented and I’ve been working on ways to get connected with them. One of the things that I’ve realized is that you just have to ask.  That is hard sometimes, though. I have such a fear of being rejected by people who do what I do that I never want to ask people to work with me. The last thing I want to hear is “You’re okay, but you’re not good enough to work with us.” I hear that statement in my dreams. But at the same time, I know that I’m not growing because I’m not interacting with other good musicians. Who knows what cool things I could have accomplished by now if I had just decided to ask?

So whether it’s personal music or stuff you do for you churches, do you ever stop to run through ideas with other people? Or do you just keep them to yourself all the time? I am totally guilty of keeping to myself and not spending time outside of myself. Lately, I’ve been writing a song with my friend, Brittany Howard, and I’ve greatly enjoyed that and wondered why I haven’t done it more often. The other thing that I realize is that I’m not doing my part to further the kingdom. I am supposed to be in relationship with other Christians and that’s not happening either. I have this idea in my head of the way I think things should happen and if it doesn’t look like that will be the case then I’m quick to run away from the idea. That’s me trying to control a situation that God could be wanting to really work through.

So my pracical goal is to start reaching out and trying to work with some of my musical friends a little more. I’d love to see what we could come up with. I’m anticipating some fun things, kinda like a V7 chord right before it resolves so beautifully to the I in the next measure.

Putting this worship set together was fun. It was also challenging. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at first. But I am always looking to progress from the week before. So I came up with this idea to open instrumentally to let people know that things are starting up. Plus, after last week I learned that the people in this church love to hear their piano played and it got tuned this week. All reasons to play it, right? And what better way to open than with a good ‘ole hymn? Sunday morning at CKBC looks like this…

He Leadeth Me (Opening

Blessed Be Your Name

How Great is Our God/How Great Thou Art

Here I Am to Worship

‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus (Response)

I hope that wherever you worship this morning you are going to give God the praise that is due.

Listening to “Your Name” by Paul Baloche. Great song!

This question seems to stay in the back of my mind daily after it was asked to me a few years ago. I used to mess with my Dad when I was little saying that he used to go to his office at church to sleep and not have to answer my mom’s questions. I never knew why it took so long to write a speech. Needless to say I didn’t really get it until I ended up in the similar position, having an office within the church. I realized then just how much happens during a day in the life of a church. I also realized the importance of taking time to get ahead. If I don’t do some future planning, I always end up behind because my life resembles insanity most of the time and I never know what’s going to happen. Sure, I take breaks to read, write, update my facebook and Twitter and even close my eyes. But there’s a lot to do. Currently, the piano tuner is here working on the piano in the choir room outside my office. Side note: I LOVE piano tuning. Don’t ask me why because I can’t tell you. I just love listening to a piano tuner work. That attention to detail and and craftsmanship is great. Plus, piano tuners are generally amazing pianists. That’s fun to hear him just quickly run through some of the most famous classical pieces is a yummy day for my ears.

Now, back to what I was saying… so many things happen during the course of a day and week in the office of a church. I shared with you some of the things that I do over the course of the day. What about you? Let me hear from you. Oh, and this isn’t just specifically for people who work in churches. Thought I’d throw that out there.