I am being blasted with this right now because I feel like I’m seeing a lot of this in the “church culture”. I don’t know who is listening or who cares to read it, but I feel that my own heart is being challenged by it and so I should share the love

I don’t know if this will be a terribly long post like the others have been, but I just have some thoughts to share and hopefully a discussion starts. It seems lately that we are pushing cultural agendas to strike a chord with those outside the church, instead of pushing a Gospel that speaks to any agenda that can arise in the culture. This is a scary place to be because it doesn’t take much to fall into a place where the Gospel takes a back seat to whatever is going on around you. When the church at Ephesus struggled, it was because they stepped away from their first love. The love of the Gospel and it’s ability to reach every part of the heart. In their attempts to reach the Gentiles, they began to fall into some of their practices. In Paul’s letter to them, he spoke directly to the fact that they were slipping into the sin that was going on around them.

At the point we begin to try and align ourselves with an issue over our alignment with the Gospel, there will always be the possibility that we could be “tossed to and from by every wind and doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14). When the Gospel becomes a back door issue, it has the tendency to become a non issue. That. Is. Scary.

But this is only the way I see it. What say you?

I am an offender. I know other offenders. We are probably all offenders whether we want to admit it or not. We get to the point in our lives that we are so busy and scheduled that we look back and realize that we have planned Jesus out of our daily lives. I will get back to this point in a little bit, but first I want to talk more corporately.

A couple weeks ago we had a sermon on prayer and how it was important to those of us who call our church home. We have to be committed to praying for our church and its leaders and the people that walk in the door. Then it struck me. As the one who plans our Sunday services and the scheduling of people and the times, we give VERY little time to praying each Sunday. I have worked so hard in the past year plus to craft a service time with all of these different elements and creative moments and looked back and saw that some of the staples were missing. I had successfully planned out Jesus. We didn’t leave much room for the Holy Spirit to really work. So what did we do? We made a change. We decided that we would devote time each week to corporate prayer during the service. And people have really swallowed it up. And then I sit back and wonder, “What took us so long?”

Are you able to look at your life see ways that you have planned Jesus out of it? Are you recovering from realizing that you had done it before? I can’t find any situation where planning Jesus out of the picture is a good thing. Have you planned your family so perfectly and some sort of way Jesus fell out of the plans? I know that I have made this mistake. I know that I need to change it. I’m taking that step. Wanna join me?

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?

MY GOODNESS!!! If you like baseball, this World Series has been great! A little bit of drama, some major long balls, pitching, a couple questionable umpire calls, and two teams laying it all out for that trophy. I’m having a blast and my home team is down one game right now! I’m trying to find a biblical reference to connect to the series, but I’m not sure that I could find one. Does the ‘there will be wars and rumors of wars’ one fit here? No? Okay. Can’t say I didn’t try. Anyway…

In the midst of all this baseball fun, I was profusely sick this past weekend. When you live in a family of 5, it’s really hard to escape catching something that starts with the children. Usually I do okay, but this time I caught it full fledged. I was NOT happy with that whole situation. It was so bad that I knew on Friday night that I wouldn’t make it to church on Sunday. Thanks to those who stepped in while I was in the bed trying not to die.

Sometimes we are given breaks as an opportunity to step back and refocus the lens. I’m not sure how much refocusing was done during this time. I definitely had to step back, but that’s because I was in NO position to do my job. I think the refocusing starts now. I’m not saying that God put me in a position like Job and got me super sick to see if I would still trust Him or anything like that. I just know that whatever it was I got blasted with got me pretty good and I’m glad to be back rolling again.

So how does a worship pastor bounce back from missing a week of church? Well, that’s a good question. It all depends on how much work you got done before you went down. I was in the middle of a whole bunch of stuff and none of it was anywhere close to being done at the time. So this is catch up, and if I’m lucky, get ahead again week for me. I ask for you guys to pray for me that I can jump back on the wagon and get moving down the road again. I’m working on some pretty cool and possibly big news type stuff. That’s about as spoiler as I can get for now. I will keep you posted as I know things, but it includes music. And a lot of it.

For the past few weeks or so, I’ve been writing from this ‘armchair quarterback’ position on Tuesdays. I tell you, it is forcing me to really look at who I am and what I do. At the end of the day, I am faced with the decision of choosing to follow God’s leading verses what I think we should do. Then I step back and look to evaluate the choices that have been made.

Retrospectively, this past week wasn’t one of my best as far as how I was feeling. I never felt totally comfortable with the music, I didn’t feel comfortable with the group that I put together. I wasn’t sure that all the pieces were going to work. But this was one of those times when God sat me down and said, “It’s not up to you”. He came in and did something quite amazing and this Sunday’s worship time was really special. That seems like a pretty standard, almost cliche story. But sitting on this side of the computer typing it, I know that it was quite far from that. How many times do we talk about not putting God in a box, and then promptly go right back to doing the same thing? I’m speaking as someone who has done such a thing. What I think is worse is that I keep putting him in and taking him out, like I’m the one making the calls. All the while God is looking down on me and laughing profusely while He continues to do His work.

As Christians, we bind ourselves by trying to make God fit into a space that we can understand. That was never meant to be the case. Psalm 19 tells us that the fear of the Lord endures forever. To me that means that we will never experience a time where the power of God will be underwhelming to us. That means that God will never lose the power to surprise (name that slogan). And that, my friends, is not something that you can change. It’s gonna happen. And that’s cool. Seriously. It is.

Before I wrap this up, I want to say congrats to my childhood friend (teenage-hood friend?) Jennifer Drake Fantroy who got married over the weekend. I love that girl and I’m so proud of the woman she has become. Love you JD!!!!

So, this will be the first TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) post that will have nothing to do with football because I didn’t watch any games on Sunday or Monday. Before you blast me out of the man cave, this was a rather unique weekend for me and so sometimes things have to take a back seat. And when your family is not accustomed to that being a regular thing, you have to go with the family. Anyway, I have still have something to share and it fits, so I’m using it.

Last night while watching the elimination portion of my favorite show, The Sing Off, something popped into my head. One of the groups that was in the last 2 (and the one that ultimately lost) was one that I expected to be there. However, the other part of the duo, I didn’t expect to see there for a while if ever. They are a powerhouse group of female vocalists who can blow the roof off. But in last night’s episode, they broke one of the big rules in music. They didn’t pick a song that they could sing. They changed their approach to the show and it almost cost them. They went for the cute factor and completely left behind the fact that as a group they probably have the strongest voices in the show every time they step on the stage. In a vocal competition that is so strong with a myriad of amazing groups, you have to lay it all on the line on every opportunity. They didn’t do that and they almost were sent packing.

Sunday, during our opener I had an idea that I thought was going to be a good one, but it sort of fell flat because I didn’t go all in and execute it they way I wanted to. I ended up being mad because about it because I thought it could have been a powerful moment that wasn’t because of me. So as I sit in my TMQ chair writing this, I know one of the things that was missing in this week’s service was me giving everything I had. The thing that is hard for me and should be hard for anyone in my situation is because, unlike the girls of Delilah, I didn’t give my all during a church service when I was supposed to be giving my all to the Father. How many times do we go throughout a day or week and not give our all? How many times can you look back and say “Man, this would have been better had I been able to give all to it”? After Sunday, I have decided that I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to have to look back and say “I wish”. I had almost forgotten about how bad Sunday was until I was reminded during the show last night. Interesting how that works…

I will leave you today with the words of a hymn by Elisha A. Hoffman.

You have longed for sweet peace,
And for faith to increase,
And have earnestly, fervently prayed;
But you cannot have rest,
Or be perfectly blest,
Until all on the altar is laid.

Refrain

Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?
Your heart does the Spirit control?
You can only be blest,
And have peace and sweet rest,
As you yield Him your body and soul.

Would you walk with the Lord,
In the light of His Word,
And have peace and contentment alway?
You must do His sweet will,
To be free from all ill,
On the altar your all you must lay.

Refrain

O we never can know
What the Lord will bestow
Of the blessings for which we have prayed,
Till our body and soul
He doth fully control,
And our all on the altar is laid.

Refrain

Who can tell all the love
He will send from above,
And how happy our hearts will be made,
Of the fellowship sweet
We shall share at His feet,
When our all on the altar is laid.

I’ve been thinking about this for a little while, but I couldn’t figure out the approach I wanted to take. This is an interesting topic in my own mind. And I also wonder what others think about this. I know that in the end this may be a matter of semantics, but maybe it will be more than that.

So here’s the question to ponder. How many worship pastors feel like they are truly shepherding people? How many church goers feel that they are being shepherded by the worship guy? I would hope that there is spiritual truth being presented in the songs that are being sung in your churches. That is definitely a huge part of people led. But do you know how much or how little that worship pastor is putting into that music? Do you think they are just picking songs? Or do you believe that they are praying over and through worship sets to make sure that what they sing on Sundays brings truth about our Savior? How accessible is the worship leader/pastor at your church? Now I know that some of us attend some pretty big churches and it’s hard to get to some of them. So I guess then this question really is for you as well. Are you being shepherded by them? Or are they just leading the music? Do you attend a church where the worship pastor teaches a class or leads a study? Do you know what books he or she is reading? Do you even care?

So that turned out to be a lot of questions. These are all questions I have as a worship leader. When I was in school I went through all of these classes that talked about where the role of worship leader is today and where it is going from here. It was very insightful for me to see that I should be well versed and read and know my Bible. The question I always come back to is “Does anyone else care about this but us?” That wasn’t to say that we were going through stuff in vain. I just wonder how much people who aren’t worship leaders care about what we know? I guess these are the questions I pose today. Answer at will.

It’s Tuesday morning and we are looking back at the weekend that was. First things first, my poor Rams can’t catch a break. Of course, they aren’t helping themselves out at all with the sloppy play. Their inability to score in the red zone will cause them problems all season long. I tweeted last night that they are going to need churches to start praying for them as part of Sunday service. But since this isn’t a football blog, I’ll let that be the end of that.

The other thing that happened this weekend is that God did some really cool stuff at The Word at Shaw this weekend. We were still sort of reeling from the Sunday of service on the 11th. Our community really loved having a church come in and serve in a practical way. This week we unleashed a flurry of new things on our church all at the same time. I was worried that it was going to implode. We launched a new service format. We also starting using a bulletin type thing as people have constantly asked for something to write notes on as well as something with important dates that they could keep. From a behind the scenes standpoint, we launched a new position called service producer that helped things go a lot more smoothly than normal. The best part? I wasn’t doing it all! We started our early morning Bible Study and, even though there was the normal first day confusion, things went pretty well. So there were a lot of moving parts Sunday morning and I was afraid that chaos was going to break out. But God did something marvelous. He brought a calm to the situation that I can not explain. Everyone found the same groove and sat right there in it. Then something awesome happened…

After the second song set the guy scheduled to pray got up and just opened his heart to the congregation. He said that he had a really tough week and it was comforting to know that God was working for our good (we had just finished singing Your Love Never Fails). So he turned to me and asked me to just lead us in that part again and let that be our prayer. So the church went back into that bridge and you could see people really start to embrace that line and this special moment of worship happened. I think we could have let that happen for the rest of the day and no one would have cared. What was special for me was that, in the midst of all the changes and structure that was finally created, God came and did what he wanted to with it. I LOVE when that happens.

Sometimes you can make all the plans in the world. Everything could be going just so smooth in your own mind and then God comes in and does what He wants to do. And then you just have to shake your head. Because then you remember that He’s the one that’s really in control. And even though we make our own plans, we are reminded that our ways and His ways aren’t the same. And that’s okay.

Before I get started, you do realize that worship leaders watch football all the time too, right? Just checking. Now that we’ve settled that debate, Happy Tuesday to you all! For me this is my first work day of the week and so I take lots of time on Tuesdays to look back at what we did on Sunday and prepare for the next week. Since the first week of the NFL ended last night, I thought it would only be fitting to jump on that bandwagon.

One of the things that I am proud of at The Word at Shaw is that we are building a culture of worship within the church. When we first started we are trying to cultivate who we really were. It led to some interesting mornings from the stage. I had to remember that everything was new. I had to be the one that led us where we needed to go. Here I stand in September and I see that it is starting to catch on. I love being able to worship with people that I know. When we first started none of us really knew each other and that played out on Sunday morning as well as all the other times. But I have noticed that as we have built relationships with each other, our worship times together have changed. People are becoming more free in their expression. They are responding to songs that they know or have heard before. From the stage I have seen the transformation that has happened.

What does that mean for me? Well, it means that I can take the clamps off the back half of the playbook (football term). The Rams just got a new Offensive Coordinator who has brought in a new system. When you bring in something new like that, you have to make sure that your team can be successful. So you may not bring out your most tricky, intricate schemes when you first get there. You just want to make sure they get the terminology right and run the right way. But once you can see that your team gets it, then you start to unleash what the scheme can really do. In the same way, probably longer than I should, I have kept the back half of the playbook closed because I wanted to make sure that we were comfortable enough to worship together and enjoy the time singing together. Now we have made it to the point where people are asking for songs and other things like that. I’m seeing now that I can be a little more creative with our worship experience and that the receptivity of our people is quite high. As a result we are about to release a myriad of new songs to our church to freshen things up and keep us moving forward. I learned something a few years ago (probably the last time) on a field trip to a St. Peters church. While I wasn’t totally impressed with the way they chose music on a regular basis, I loved how they seemed to have a plan to phase music in and out. I am starting my first phasing process. I’m excited to see where we are headed and where we end up over the next few months. There are a lot of new changes taking place over the upcoming weeks.

I’m sharing my process because I realize that it’s important for me to see it all laid out. Also, it has helped me in the past to search worship leader blogs and run across practical information like this. I think I have just decided that Tuesday Morning Quarterback will be a weekly thing throughout the football season. Once that’s over with I’ll have to come up with another name.