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.

For those of you that are counting out there (that would be me and me), this is post number 200! I wanted to do something special, but I didn’t have anything to give away or any of the cool stuff that was popping in my head. So this is a mental milestone for me. And that’s fine. If I keep pushing along maybe we’ll see something big happen at 300. I did, however decide that I would use this one as a challenge to you my readers and fellow worshipers. As I have observed church services, led church services, wrote about different experiences and been a part of different conversations, I’ve been constantly bombarded with this paradigm shift in worship. Some of it I understand. Some of it I don’t. Some of it I choose not to accept. So without going into all that again (read some of the posts and discussions from a month ago), I have made my own choice. I cannot be okay with where the bar is set. I sort of believe that it’s too low and is causing mediocrity in worship. Can I change the world? Well, not by myself. But can I change myself and directly affect those around me? Heck yeah! What does that look like for me? Well, this whole week has been written based on my one experience this week. I have a unique opportunity to directly inspire my own worship environment. I want to see what happens when I lead with true brokenness and redemption and worship and spirit and truth. Can my own display of worship induce true worship in others? Can I enrich my community of worshipers based on what I do from the stage? Well if I’m not mistaken, that’s what my job is. I guess maybe it’s time to be more intentional about it.

Do you agree that the worship bar in church has been lowered with time? Do you disagree? What do you see when you go to church? Do you think I’m expecting too much? Do you think you have the ability as a worshiper to affect the worship that happens around you on a weekly basis? Your thoughts are welcome and encouraged.

I just want to start out by saying I don’t like this phrase. I was trying to think about why I don’t like it, and I think it’s because I can’t use it. I mean, I COULD use it. But in my own heart and mind, I can’t use that phrase. I was reading on the Internet this week when I ran across another celebrity divorce upcoming that used that as their reasoning for the break up. Now, I don’t have any real ties to that relationship so it doesn’t really matter to me in that sense. But I do wonder what it is in us today that allows us to so easy walk away from things when we don’t like them. That brought me to this idea…

Is this the mindset we operate from when it comes to church as well? What about worship music? The pastor? I see this very easily being something that people use without realizing it. Sometimes we will be involved in a situation and when it starts to not look like we want it to, we start to find ways to justify our disdain. One of my favorite people, Kevin Hughes always says that when someone comes to his church because it’s ‘perfect’ he already knows that they won’t be around long. Eventually that new church smell will wear off and they will begin to see all of the imperfections of the church and get disenchanted and leave. Whenever I hear about these things happening, I wonder if we ever get to a point that we look inward. At what point do we decide that the irreconcilable differences don’t come from the church, but they are within us? Are we not willing to reconcile the problems in our own hearts? Are we not willing to make the hard changes when we are forced to look at them? Are we not willing to say that we are getting older and even though it’s not bad, the new music is just something we need to get used to? Can we accept that the pastor isn’t perfect and sometimes he will say things that we don’t like? Do things that we don’t like? Not call me back as quick as I would like because he probably has other stuff going on as well?

I am from the school of thought (and I may be alone in this) that says that it’s not always the other person’s fault. Sometimes I have to look at myself no matter how hard that may be and no matter what I might find and know that I may have to make some changes. What are some of your ‘irreconcilable differences’ that you may need to take another look at?

Hello to all of you and Happy New Year! There are so many things to say. I wrestled with the idea of doing a “end of the year recap” or whatever, but I decided that I’m not that cool. Instead, I decided that I was going to use this first blog of the year to say goodbye to the old and introduce the new. Thanks to all of you who have been reading my blog, even though it has been highly inconsistent as the year ended. Part of the reason for the sloppiness on my part was lack of vision. I’ve been working hard on creating a vision for this blog and for worship180. Well, I hope to be able to share all of that with you in the upcoming days, weeks, whatever. Anyway, here’s a preview of what’s to come.

First things first, the format of the blog will be changing greatly, which is a good thing. Part of it is an idea I took from my friend, Alisha. Her blog has always had a couple sections, and I loved reading it. So in sort of a stolen sort of way but not really, I’m going to do something similar. It will look like this:

Worship As Life- This blog is meant to be about my life as a worship leader. I want to be able to help people understand what it’s like to live this life. Also, I want to be able to hopefullly say some things that other worship leaders and worshipers want and need to hear. So that is what the first section will be about.

If My Mood Was a Chord…-I’m excited about this one because I get to let out some of my music nerd. To some people music is just music. But to us music nerds, music is a way of life and we relate music to everything. So my goal with this is 2 fold. 1, I want to be able to share with my fellow musicians how I feel with music. 2, I want to be educational to those of you who may not think this way. You may not start thinking like this, but you’ll at least get an understanding of what I mean. Maybe…or you could just think that I’m really weird.

Live Out Loud- If I’m going to be sharing this life with others, I should at least give you tools to share yours as well. This section will be designed to share ways for you to use the worship180 concept in everyday life.

As if that wasn’t enough, I will also be launching a facebook fan page for worship180 as well. It has already been created and is up and running. I haven’t officially launched it yet, but it’s definitely there. If you are a facebook user, the link is here: Worship180 on Facebook You should be able to click that and become a fan. I’m excited to start this new year off on the right foot. Come with me. And invite some others for the ride. Help me get worship180 out to the world this year.

I can’t believe just how busy this weekend has been. I haven’t been going a whole lot, or at least I don’t think I have. But with this weekend, I have spent time with my family, which is always good. I wrote a song on yesterday, which is something I haven’t done in a long while. I will debut it soon, once I think it’s ready. If you wanna hear it, you may want to find yourself at one of my concerts coming up within the next month. They are going to be fun. Today was really cool because I actually got to go to church today. I’ve been going to church, but I haven’t been able to go to my church. Even better, I got to go to church with my family. We rode together and things were good. I’m thankful for the weekend that God has given me.

So what’s coming up this week? Well, who knows. Each week holds something different for us these days. There are some things that definitely need prayer that I hope to share with you all soon. Before I forget, pray for the Cornwell family as my friend, Rob was diagnosed with colon cancer. I love this guy and I love how he is handling this. I mean, cancer is cancer, but he is ready for the fight. Pray that he can continue to fight with the Lord’s help.

I will be preparing for an upcoming church retreat I’ve been asked to lead worship for in Joliet, Il. I will be leaving Friday and coming back Sunday. Then it’s prep time for the Sunday morning concert at Waypoint Church in St. Peters.

OH! OH! OH! Before I forget, my brother in law is getting married! I alsmost forgot that. I told you, even though I didn’t go a whole bunch of places, a lot happened this weekend. Did I mention that he was getting married in a month? I gotta get busy preparing for this…

What else am I forgetting? Oh yeah!!!! Big news, but I’ll save that for later this week. You’ll just have to come back and read what I’ve got to say. This is BIIIIIIIG news…

So I’ve been thinking about this a for a little while now. I’ve decided that I’m not a huge fan of the word ‘blended’.  The other thing that I have decided is that there is so much emphasis put on this style of worship because people seem to think this is the answer to the problems within the church.  The thought is that you can do newer songs without losing some of the older songs that people have come to know and love. I believe that this is a key element in leading the church in worship. Songs have meaning and they generally mean different things to different people at different times. This makes it difficult as a worship leader to choose songs because you want to keep current without leaving people behind. So how current is TOO current? How far back do you reach?

A few years ago before he died, Robert Webber begun calling this style “Converged”. I think this is a good name for it, and I believe that this is a little more than just semantics. Robert Webber was an amazing thinker and always took many things into consideration. I believe that this type of approach is the one that needs to be taken in order for this style of worship to actually work.  Bringing different styles and different eras together on a weekly basis may be the hardest thing to do. I applaud those who do that weekly (I have been one of them for a while). There has to be a continued reach toward fine tuning this idea. Who’s going to step up?

Even as I’m sitting here writing this sentence, I can’t believe that I’m writing it. I love this idea and am slightly overwhelmed by it at the same time.  As I was getting ready to sit down and really think about this idea, I was having an awesome conversation with a very good friend of mine, Charlie. He was sharing some excerpts from a book that talked about how we must realize that the circumstances around us are put there by God and if he had something different for us that would work better he would use them. I look at the circumstances that have happened in my life and I realize that if it weren’t for the people that God has placed in my life I wouldn’t be where I am today. I won’t even begin to name people because I’ll forget someone and they’ll be the person to read this   Here are some of my thoughts though…

We as a people are so enthralled by the idea of doing things on our own. There’s something about being able to say that I did something myself or I made it somewhere without any help. But in reality, we weren’t even designed to do things on our own. We are built to help each other and be helped by each other. God loved us enough to put people in our lives so we wouldn’t have to try to be independent. Why do we run away from what God has for us?

I am so thankful for all the people in my life that help me get through this crazy life. Even though I have so many people in my life that want to be there for me, I find ways to try to be independent as well. What am I doing? I have a guide that shares all kinds of way for me to depend on Christ and the people that he puts in my life. No where does it mention me being a loner or trying to handle this life by myself. However, I try to do it all the time. It gets even harder when, like me, you’re married with a family. Now I have people closer to me all the time and instead of embracing that fact, I work harder to try to be independent. We are weirdos sometimes…

What am I saying? I guess what I’m trying to say is Christians are called to help each other. We aren’t doing anyone a favor when we don’t lend a hand to help or we don’t make ourselves available for our brothers and sisters. One day we will realize this. Who knows how much of an impact the body can have when we decide to finally work together in the ways that God planned…

⁹ Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their work:

¹⁰ If one falls down,
his friend can help him up.
But pity the man who falls
and has no one to help him up!

¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?

¹² Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12