I know it has been said many times before, but it continues to happen. We get used to singing songs and then the intensity of the words seem to fade into the back ground. It happens with older songs as well as the newer ones that I have sung a few times already. My focus has really been split lately and I’ve had lots of things on my mind. In trying to stand on the things that I’m doing and the things that I know, I’m not able to stand that long. And that’s frustrating. So what do I do? Try and stand on them again because I’m intent on making this work. I’m a little bit stubborn.

I was reading in Nehemiah last night and reading through Chapter 3 I saw the great care that each family took in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem so that they would be strong and able to withstand whatever came to the city. I thought about how many times I’ve done that because I have placed my hopes and dreams on something that either is not that strong on not there at all. The first line of today’s quoted song is “My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness.” You can’t get much more sturdy than that, however I keep trying.

The verse that is sticking with me today is the third one. It goes like this:

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

How many times have you felt like everything around you has crumbled? I am at a point right now when all the things that I lean on and count as stable are falling. The bad thing is that I’ve been building on shifting sand. The good news is that the solid rock isn’t too far away. The scary thing for me is that I spend so much time in church and working at church, yet I haven’t let Christ permeate my soul. My walk has become a motion instead of a true walk. Do you have some things that you are holding on to that you need to let crumble so that you can focus on Christ? Are you stumbling around because you’ve been building on sand? Am I the only one?

I can’t believe that I haven’t written on this before now, especially since this is sort of what I do. Okay, it is exactly what I do. Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what is going on and how to pull it all together. Sometimes I feel like I have a solid handle on what I’m trying to communicate from the stage. After being in many different musical positions in my life, I would have to say that this is the toughest. I was having a conversation with some a couple of weeks ago and they were asking me why I do some songs and don’t do other songs. In this situation the answer was pretty easy: you do what your people can do. But there are a lot of things to consider weekly. Here are a couple that I deal with.

Bringing Cultures Together

I look at this part like solving Rubik’s Cube. You’re spinning around old and young, black and white and Asian and whomever else, traditional and contemporary, male and female and trying to make all those things come together somehow in 20 minutes worth of music. It. Is. Hard. It’s next to impossible to bring them all together, and most weeks you can’t. For one, there’s hardly ever enough time. But even more than that, unless you have an hour long show you are not going to make everyone happy. When you spend your time trying to make sure that everyone is happy, you’ll find that know one is. Including you. Your best bet (which is ALWAYS your best bet) is to listen to God’s voice and let him tell you what needs to be conveyed through the music and then you play that. Let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes that’s David Crowder. Sometimes that’s William McDowell. Sometimes it’s Isaac Watts. It’s a wild party in my head, but with every wild party there’s usually good music.

Blending Styles

There are some similarities between this one and the first one, but this applies more to the way a song is arranged. I personally love to mix up the arrangement of a song. That’s one of the easiest ways to make a song accessible to different types of people. Of course, this also one of the more dangerous moves on a weekly basis. Why? Well, I call this one The Sing Off effect. If I haven’t said it before, this is by far my favorite show on all of television. I wish I was on everyday so I could keep getting ideas and hearing what these amazing people can do with their voices. One of my favorite things about the show is the fact that these groups with different styles have to find a way to approach multiple genres of music, sometimes in the same night. I find myself having to do that on a weekly basis to give things some variety. It’s a fun and it allows me to branch out. But there’s a lot of care taken since an arrangement could either really shine or flop. It’s one of those risks you have to take.

Letting Christ Be The Star

You would think this wouldn’t be a big deal to keep in the forefront. However, sometimes as musicians we work really hard on a project or an arrangement and then we take things personally good or bad. If a song goes real well and people give compliments then it can be difficult to step out of that feeling of “yes, I put in a lot of hard work that you would never understand to make this be something that you would enjoy”. Whether you are in a multicultural church where people are looking for variety in almost every chord or straight Sunday morning gospel or the Chris Tomlin Pandora station, this NEEDS to be your major focus. Otherwise you’re a thief and you’re trying to rob the kingdom of the glory that should be headed that way.

Are there any other worship pastors that are leading in my type of situation? What are your thoughts? How much do these thoughts translate to leading in general? What about those of you that aren’t on the stage weekly? How do you gauge what you hear when you go to church?

As I thought about writing this, I realized that there is a lot of insecurity in this job and in the people that occupy this position. Then I remembered that we are all musicians and to some degree we all suffer with a bit of that insecurity. But this is one of those things that happens probably more than we care to admit. We work hard to put a set together for church or a retreat weekend and feel pretty good when we finally put it all together. Then we sit down with other worship leaders and talk about recent sets or songs that we just introduced and think, “Man! I’m missing out on a whole set of artists” or, “I wish I would have thought to put those songs together”.

I know for sure that there are a lot of people out there that I haven’t heard of or don’t listen to normally that have written great music for the church. I also know that I have friends that are better at this thing than I am. I have suffered from Set List Envy on many different occasions. I can’t say that I know how to get around it or that you other worship leaders won’t ever go through it yourselves. But one of the things that I have learned to do is take advantage of the friendships I have and the opportunities to learn new songs. Once I realized that I could be that same asset to my friends as they are to me, the envy started to fall away and turn into fact gathering moments.

So if you’ve been this person before, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. I’ve been there with you. It gets better. Of course, I’m speaking as if I’m not the only one who has felt this way. Is that really the case?

I’m sitting on the couch in my bedroom in a window looking at a rain soaked ground and the little droplets ready to fall from the electrical wiring suspended through the air. It’s November 3rd and up until now it has felt a little bit like mid September. But, according to the weather sources, we are about to get hit with a cold front and this rain that I’m seeing right now is just the beginning of that. There is some change coming. People are on all different points of the spectrum on liking or disliking the cold weather. I don’t mind it personally. That’s when I can wear sweaters and all my fun fall clothes. There is one thing that most people agree on, and that’s the havoc that weather change wreaks on your immune system. Drug stores are about to see that bump in the numbers that they plan for every year around this time. Runny noses and sore throats will take over the area for a little while as people get adjusted to the fall and winter seasons. As someone who didn’t really experience allergies until after I turned 30, I am NOT a fan of this change. As a vocalist, it does a number on my ability to do my job for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, I have a forgiving church family (that or they realize that I can’t sing anyway and it doesn’t sound much different, but that’s just speculation…).

Why does change (in any form) cause so much friction? People always talk about making a smooth transition, but has that every truly happened? There’s always something that causes people strife when it comes to things changing. The one thing that is probably my FAVORITE thing to experience is whenever our beloved Facebook makes a change to their website. I think there’s only been one change that has been remotely interesting in the sense that I don’t know if I was a huge fan. But even in that, it took like 42.18 seconds to get used to it and then I was back to updating my status and living a life of procrastination. But it never fails that for 3 or 4 days after people get so bent out of shape that they proclaim that they will NEVER use Facebook again and that this change is the WORST. Then they get over it and they are fine. I can’t wait to see what people say about this upcoming change. It’s going to be glorious.

When it comes to the world of music, change is constant. Things are always changing there to the point that I think that’s the only thing that’s constant. People are always getting bent out of shape when it comes to the music in our churches. I just got through reading a post this morning about how men are complaining about worship music being too feminine. That is a whole other issue that I won’t jump into right now, but it seems that people are always trying to make things, whether it’s music or seasons or television, fit into a box. None of it ever really has and people have been upset with the changing ever since. The MOST ironic thing about all of this? The one person that has promised to never change and has help up his end of the bargain is the one thing that everyone seems to run from. Why? Because then the biggest changes would have to happen. That’s the change that takes the control out of our own hands and gives it to someone else. Does it matter that He’s much better at controlling things? Evidently not, because if it did we’d see more people accepting the fact that God is who He says He is. It’s a simple verse, but it’s mind blowing to think that one person could be the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). What would happen to the way you think and live if you TRULY believed that?

Eventually ( like tomorrow maybe) I’ll stop explaining this, but I’m trying to write every day in the month of November and share things that I’m thankful for in the process. So on day 3 I’m thankful for having a strong foundation laid for me by my parents. They are quite amazing people and they are totally to blame for the person I am today.

I know that I’ve said this before, as a matter of fact, I said it last night to some people in a meeting. We were brainstorming about where we are in the church and what might be our next step. We had a few different ideas come out of that meeting, but the one thing that stuck out the most to me was ways for us to use our Sunday morning time to change the culture of our people to refocus them on the gospel. It struck a chord with me because I have been feeling like that’s where I need to be. I know for certain that I can get so focused on the task of being a pastor that I overlook the joy of being a pastor. The joy comes in being able to share the gospel with people through song, and even more directly, through daily life. The gospel has to take center stage at all times.

There is a lot of responsibility that we accepted as Christians when we took this job and that was to continue to spread the gospel to others, giving them a chance to hear something that they may have never heard before. Something that is so life changing that you gave yourself over to it. Everyone needs that chance.

In this world of knowledge and people searching for answers, I continue to hold on to a verse I learned when I was like 12 years old. Paul says this to the church at Corinth.

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers,t did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

The whole passage is really cool in context, but the verse I remembered was 2. I strive to nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. There is a lot of stuff to know here in this world. But there is so much wrapped up in knowing Jesus Christ that you could spend a lifetime getting to know him and never know everything. So my goal is to get back to what I need to know. It was written that “I spend my life to know, that I’m far from close to all you are, the greatness of our God”. That’s what I’m going for. Who is with me? You? How about you over there?

Lastly, this is November. I know it’s crazy to be thinking that, especially since yesterday was 74 and today is going to be close to the same. Nevertheless, we are here and this is the time to be thankful. So I have 2 goals this month. 1, to try and blog every day this month. 2, I want to share something that I’m thankful for on each of those days. Since I didn’t write yesterday, here’s 2 for the day. I am thankful for my wife. She has been amazing woman to me for 9 plus years. She continues to stand by me as we go through this life and I lead us down some crazy, winding roads with no side rails. She’s right there 100%.

The second thing is a 3 in 1 type deal. They come in the forms of Kahmylia Isabelle, Brisa Noelle and Harry Ernest Walls, V. My kids are so amazing and I can’t believe that they are mine. I’m always harder on them than anyone else, but that’s because I want so bad for them to be God honoring, respectful and responsible children. I have 3 little blessings and I am continuously amazed at the rate in which they grow. Who knows how long it will be before they actually read this, if they EVER do, but know that I am thankful for them. What are you thankful for today?