I may not like their baseball team (from the Northside that is…), but I must say that they have some people in the area that love God. That means more to me than anything. God truly blessed this weekend and I’m glad that I was invited.

I spent this past weekend at the The Church of the Good Shepherd in Joliet, IL. I was a part of a ministry team put together by Lay Renewal Ministries to do a Congregational Renewal Conference. I didn’t know what to expect because I had never done this before. I was a part of a group put together from LRM people from St. Louis, Green Bay and the upper peninsula of Michigan. We all descended on Joliet to lead this weekend conference. I obviously led the worship times, but I was also leading small groups and sharing testimonies. We got to get into the people’s homes with the coffee groups on Saturday morning. We also got to have some time where the women and men were split during Saturday’s lunch. Even though the men’s luncheon was outside, we really enjoyed it.

Now you may think that I’m being horribly insensitive, but one of my favorite times of the trip happened at Wendy’s. Yes, I love Frosties and Fries. Glad that Illinois was stocked with Wendy’s because I was REALLY needing it. Thank you, Illinois…thank you!

I am so grateful for the experience of leading these people to the foot of the cross. God did some great things during this weekend and I’m glad that he allowed me to be a part of it. I also got to meet some other great Christians. And I got to spend some time with people from Wisconsin with that great northern accent. Fun times…

So what’s on tap for this week? Well, I have vocal and band rehearsals this week as well as working with the ministry groups at mobap. Then this Sunday morning I have a concert at Waypoint Church. I will be a busy man this week. Please be praying because I am hoping that this ministry can take off. I would love for this to be my full time job, but it takes a lot to get going. We will see…

I owe you all a finish to that cliffhanger from last week. Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow…

This Sunday was week 2 since the decision to choose a church home that had nothing to do with where I was leading worship. I will say this…there are definitely pluses and minuses. Plus, I didn’t have to get up early to get to church for sound checks and stuff like that. I even got to church a little “after” the service started. Haven’t done that in about 15 years! Anyway, being able to sit back and listen to others lead and see that others have a heart for the same thing was good. Great job, Gina. You rocked this morning!

Minus, I REALLY love doing what I do. There’s a part of me that likes to sit back and listen. There’s an even larger part of me that loves to lead and be on stage. It is not because I need to be in front of people, but I know that’s what God has called me to do and I love being able to use that gift. Minus, I haven’t practiced or listened to any music in the past couple weeks. So there is a little bit of both on either side. But I am learning to enjoy where God has placed me right now. I’m still praying that God would lead us to a place to serve Him, but in the mean time we are serving God the best way we know how where we are. Where are we, you ask? Well currently  we are a part of the Quest Service at E-Free.

Something else that has happened this past week that was really cool. I have been given the opportunity to do something really special this year. I was asked to help out at my Alma Mater (which I just got a couple months ago), Missouri Baptist University. Since I started, the number of ministry groups have grown from 3 to 6. The number of ministry group leaders has grown from 2 to 2. Which means they need some help leading these other groups. That’s where I come in. I get to help a couple groups with their instrumental stuff as well as some vocals. I also get the chance to help develop some worship leaders. I am so pumped. For those of you that have been praying, this is not a paying thing right now, but it’s a great opportunity and I’m so excited about it. I will keep you posted on how things work our over the course of the year.

Lastly, I’m going to stop punking out and get back at working on my own music this week. This is my plan for myself. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes as well. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. and to my friends that start school tomorrow, good luck and let God bless you as you start this year off right!

So I thought I’d report on what’s going on since my last post. Once I decided to stop making excuses, I realized why I had been making excuses LOL! Once you start making plans for things and people get excited with you, then you have to keep moving and going forward because people are ready to go. I started talking to people about helping me make this whole CD project happen and I have gotten great response.  I’m excited. First rehearsal is this week.

Anyway, that’s not what this one is about. Yesterday, I got to spend some time with some dear friends at Timberridge Community Church yesterday. What an amazing time! We were going to have lunch together, and we did. However, the fellowship was so amazing that we ended up having dinner together as well. God really gave us all some rest. We kept talking about how cool it was to actually get some rest because we move so much and never really stop. I am so glad for friends and family and glad that we were able to have that time.

July is starting off fresh and I can’t wait to see what else God is going to do this month. I’ll keep writing if you keep reading…

I can’t even begin to explain how good God is! When God is working, there’s nothing else that you can do but sit back and watch the show. This first month without a permanent job has been so much more than I thought it would be. I was just hoping to get by and do what I had to do. Instead, we met our neighbors and have started a great friendship with them. I met a radio celebrity (she’s probably gonna kill me for that one!), got to sing and lead worship with 2 amazing bands, and build connections that would have never happened otherwise…and that was all at one church! That doesn’t even include my trip to Godfrey at the beginning of the month which was totally awesome. I had such a great time riding with and leading worship with my friend, Erica DeVilbiss. I’ve also met people from a couple of churches who have shown interest in me. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have met any of these people had it not been for God’s working. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for next month.

If you are interested in where we’re going next, the month of July looks sort of like this…

July 5th I’ll be at TimberRidge Community Church. Still not sure if I’m leading there yet, but we’re going for a visit. Love the people down there.

July 12th I’ll be leading worship at Rockwood Baptist Church in Wildwood, MO. This is becoming one of my favorite places to go. There are some really nice people there and they love God. I love leading for churches that love God…

July 19th I will be leading worship with family at West Hills Community Church. There’s not much else to say about this one except for this is family. Pastor Gary and his wife Jenny are lovely people and it’s always good to go home.

So as I was saying, sometimes you have to look back and realize that things are happening in ways that only God can make them happen. OH! Before I forget, my expectations were really blown away this month. I set a goal for myself to have 200 visits to my blogsite here. I thought it would be a stretch, especially since last month netted about 50. Either way, I set my sights and went for it. That meant a lot of writing for me, and also a lot of praying. The last time I checked we were sitting at about 320 visits for this month alone! Thanks friends for continuing to check in a read what I have to say. I’ll keep writing if you keep reading. Have a blessed week. You’ll probably hear from me again.

Well, I’m doing my best to continue writing my thoughts about worship styles and how I see them. In response, to my friend Charlie, I’m making sure to write about worship from a contemporary viewpoint today. I may take a break tomorrow and write about another on Monday. With all that being said…

So my answer to this question will be the same as the answer to the previous blog’s question…NO! I will step out on a limb and say that everything about contemporary worship is not good. We have gotten some great songs over the years from some great musicians and writers. We have also seen this music be something that has brought up some new musicians. We think about songs like “How Great is Our God” and “Your Grace is Enough” and you wonder how anything about contemporary music can be bad. But here is what I feel has been the BIGGEST issue with the world of contemporary music. Surprisingly enough, it won’t have anything to do with Chris Tomlin or Steve Fee. It has to do with the people in our churches…

People who have contemporary worship services tend to be alienating of other worship styles. Most of my experiences with people who sing contemporary music has been where the singers have negative thoughts about hymns of the past.  Now I know that to some degree this is an overgeneralization, but I’m just speaking for arguement sake.  I feel that sometimes we can get so excited about something new that we just blast whatever was old. That is something that hurts harmony within the body. Then we start seeing seperate services for traditional and contemporary in the same morning. Although I’m not a huge fan of separate services because of differences in style, I’ll take it over the other thing that tends to happen.

Some churches will attempt to update music and do things in a new way, but with people who don’t understand the music. When musicians try to do things they aren’t familiar with without the help of someone who IS familiar with it, that is really frustrating to me. I will try my best not to run off on a tangent, because I’m sure that’s not helpful to anyone. I think at this point I’m going to stop and leave this up for discussion…

Community Life…It’s sort of a buzzword in the church. We like to use it as a catchy name for our small groups. It invokes thoughts of people being together doing life together. What does that really mean? I believe we are called to be in each others lives intimately. Knowing each other and being together in peace is what God wants for us. One of the things we overlook or input on our own is community ‘part of’ life. In the church our groups are part of our busy lives. Now I know that these are generalizations, but hear me out…

I’m a sports fan. Whenever you watch sports news or interviews, people are always talking about chemistry. It’s not only what happens on the field, but it’s the relationships and ‘life’ that happens off the field. The most successful teams always talk about how much they were like a family. Yeah, things got tough and I’m sure they fight, but they were family. The things you don’t see highly affect what you see on television or in the stadiums. What’s in the heart comes out on the field.

How does all of this apply to corporate worship? I’ve read and talked to people who have said they feel like something is missing on Sunday mornings. When you ask them about it, they feel disconnected to the people around them. Church becomes more like a concert or a conference. It is easy to get lost in the crowd and then you begin to pick and choose the things that you like and don’t like about a specific church. Then it becomes more and more about you. It makes it easy for you to choose one place over the other and jump from church to church.

We can begin to experience deeper, more intimate worship when we know the people around us that we are worshiping with. What relationships do you have with the people around you on Sunday morning? Do you really know them? Do you have any community within your church body? If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s that people need community. Churches need people in community. Worship needs people that are in community. Think about what the worship in your church could look like if the people worshiping together actually KNEW each other? I don’t think I’m quite done with this thought, so there may be a part 2 to this one in the near future…