Wow! I started writing this post on June 14, 2011. I never finished because I didn’t really know how to say whatever it was I was trying to say. So it has sat in my draft for 11 months. Today this title means something completely different than it did then. I was writing about the Joplin tornadoes and the destruction that devastated that city. I had written a song to go along with the title and I guess I was trying to share that song. That didn’t work. I guess I’m not that good at self promotion. But that’s another story…

As I looked at this post sitting there all this time, I could very well see how that fit into my life right now. There’s so much going on right now in my life and it feels like I’m kinda out here by myself. I know that isn’t the case, but struggle begins to wear on your mind and leads you to believe that you are all alone. I needed to hear my own words this morning. I had to be able to declare that God is in the middle of all the things that I’m going through. I have to accept that He is really in control even when I feel as if I’m in the spiral of crazy.

Are you going through something right now that seems too much for you? Are things crumbling around you? Do you feel like you’re alone in the struggle? Let me assure you that you aren’t. God is right there. Rest in that fact. Praise Him for that fact. Keep moving forward in Him. He’s going to stay right there with you. As a matter of fact, if you let it go, he will actually lead. That’s truth.

This is a question that I have been asking myself for sometime now. I obviously haven’t come up with the answer yet and so I’m posing this question to all of you. What do you think comes first, worship or community? It will probably help if I explain myself a little bit.

When I speak of worship, I am speaking in the corporate sense. We are obviously called and designed to worship the Father. People worship all types of things, if you don’t believe me, find a story in the early Old Testament. But I’m talking about the concept of worshiping with other people. Coming together in worship and prayer and song and the Word. All of these things. Is this the thing to come first, or is it the community?

I’m speaking of people choosing to come together for the cause of loving Christ. Churches. Prayer Groups. Bible Studies. Family dinners. Cookouts. You know, living life together. There’s something about worshiping with people that you KNOW. I mean, as a worship leader it’s par for the course to spend some time leading worship for people you don’t know in churches you’ve only driven by or in towns you’ve never heard of. But you can’t beat coming home to worship with friends and family and fellow church members. You have relationships with these people. You have lived life with them. That makes the time a little bit sweeter.

So after laying both of the sides out, which one comes first? Can you do one without the other? How much does one filter into the other for you? The floor is now yours.

You roll over and see that it’s 3:41 in the morning. You do not want to be up at 3:41 in the morning. However, you really have to go to the bathroom. But the bed feels so good and you are enjoying your rest. So you roll back over and try to sleep through it. But you just toss and turn for a little while longer. You decide to go ahead and get up and get it over with so you can get back in the bed. After you’re done, you get back in the bed and begin what I believe is the best sleep you will ever get. You lay there and, just as you start to fall asleep, your alarm goes off. Why? Because you laid there rolling around in the dark having to pee for almost 3 hours. You missed the fullness of that sleep because of something you thought was better.

How many times have we done this with God? There’s something so much better on the other side of God’s promise, but we think that nothing can get better than where we are. Then the thing we were holding on to starts to not seem as good because the struggle kicks in. We toss and turn and fight, but it’s not enough to get the pain of the struggle to go away. Eventually it starts to overtake us until we realize that we can’t handle that pressure. At that point we finally decide to let God do his thing. We give up and let it go. It’s then that we understand that what God has for us is so much better than what we were holding on to.

There’s something so difficult about faith in today’s world. We work so hard to hold on to the tangible to the point of exclusion of Hebrews 11:1 and the things that we can’t see. More than ever, we need to be able to have faith that God will get us through the trials in this life. God is doing His job to get us to see that there is nothing here that we can see or hold on to that will comfort us better than He can. He wants us to enjoy the rest that will eventually come after we let go, allow Him to work through the struggle for us and come out on the other side. So what’s it going to take for you to get up and go to the bathroom?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Oh, 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.
4. 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.

Not much else really needs to be said. I LOVE this hymn by Elisha Hoffman because it is so direct. It causes you to look right at yourself and ask the question. Have you given all of yourself to the Lord? In certain circles you will hear people talk about how people have realized their need for a savior, but the whole Lord thing is messing them up. In a lot of ways that’s true. But it’s true for most of us. Giving up control is something that we all struggle with. The funny thing to me is that we never had any control in the first place. So this struggle to control things is immersed in the fact that we are always trying to maintain the control because things can go awry at any moment. Because we all have this mindset, we attribute these same deficiencies up Christ as well. We assume that when a tornado hits or someone dies or our home is broken into or a spouse cheats and a marriage ends in divorce that Christ let things get out of control. We act as if He sits up there running from plate to plate trying to keep them spinning and can’t get back to ours in time and something bad happens. Just in case you were wondering, that’s not true. But because we feel that way, we tend to believe that we have the ability to help God out. We think that if we do certain things for God then he won’t have to worry about us.

Picture this: if God needed your help to make things right and keep the ship moving, why did He send His Son to die on the cross? Wouldn’t that be excessively unnecessary?

So when you pray and petition God for help, do you walk away from that time fully believing that God, and ONLY God, can handle the situation? Because if you walk away thinking that you’re gonna have to do some work to get things done, then you’ve missed the point of 1 Peter 5:7. I think when we talk about laying our cares on the altar, sometimes we are still too close to them and it makes it easy for us to just snatch them up again before we walk away. The Greek word used here for cast means to throw it away. Don’t keep it anywhere close to you. Get those cares as far away from you as you can. It doesn’t matter how far you throw them, because God is sure to be there to pick them up. And you won’t be fast enough to pick them up before He gets to them.

So, are you able to truly lay all of the things that are troubling you in life on the altar? Are you able to place you job, kids, husband, wife, school, dreams, desires, plans (they are probably bad anyway if you made them on your own), house, cars- all of these things on the altar? Can you truly trust God to handle it all? When you get to that point, you will realize just how much we should be depending on him. Think about that this weekend as you head to church. You will more than likely have an opportunity to pray and give everything to Him. Will you do it?

Do  you ever feel like….Wow that sounded like I was about to recite “Firework” by Katy Perry. Let’s try this again…

How many times have you gone to do something and were really excited about it, only to have your world crumble when no one else is as excited about it as you are? I happen to live in a house where, as the only male old enough to care about anything other than milk and climbing out of a crib, I find myself here quite a bit. I like different things than the people in my family. When I get excited about those things, generally everyone gives me the “okay, Dad” look. So at the end of the day I tend to just do whatever the rest of the crowd is doing. I end up coloring Dora the Explorer pages or reading Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Sometimes that means playing Club Penguin Snow Day or watching people continuously jump into a hole on Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Unfortunately for me, sometimes that same mentality spills over into my walk with Christ. There are times when I feel like God is saying that I need to step up and do something that is going to bring glory to His name. And I’ll bring it to a group of people with great passion and vigor. I’ve prayed through this thing and really felt like I this is where God is leading. Upon presentation I get, “yeah, that’s cool or whatever. So….what are you gonna do?” In the end it’s just me sitting there and I give in to the group and I let go of that thing. The major difference here is that it means I’m being disobedient. The Lord didn’t say to me “you will know this is what I want you to do because everyone will agree and jump on board immediately”. He gave me a command, and it is my job to fulfill his commands. It doesn’t matter if I end up having to do it alone. Sometimes that’s what He is asking me to do. Though none go with me…

What is God asking you to do? Is He asking you to step up into that leadership role? Is He asking you to share your heart with someone who needs it? Is He asking you to give time to mentor a new Christian? Are you being asked to speak out against an injustice or something you see happening in your church that doesn’t fit what God says? In today’s world, these are unpopular steps to take. We have chosen to fuse ourselves to the crooked backbone of the culture to the point that we aren’t able to break away and do what God is calling us to do. We are perfectly okay with sitting back and either letting someone else do it or not doing it at all. Not only is it detrimental to the body of Christ, but it’s blatantly disobedient. You are called to stand out. You are called to be different. You are called to look awkward in some situations. Though none go with me…

Though none go with me, still I will follow

Though none go with me, still I will follow

Though none go with me, still I will follow

No turning back, no turning back.

Think about that today.

In the beginning, God created…

Pretty much EVERY translation of the Bible starts this way. Except for one that seems to add as many words as possible in translating  from the original language. But when I read this passage, this is what pops in my head. God created. Everything from then on comes from something that he made with his own hands. I’ve been having lots of conversations like this with people during this month of the Collision Course series we are doing at my church. When I think about how the Christian culture interacts with the rest of the world, it’s no wonder that there is such a divide. There’s no real collisions happening. It’s either running the other way or jumping WAY in and getting lost in the mess. But that’s another post.

In a discussion I was having last night with my friend Alex, we were talking about the newest Gungor album among other things. We started talking about how Michael Gungor had written a blog post about the Christians response to his album. He wrote a very interesting blog post back in November. In it he talks asks the question why some Christian music is considered “so creative” in its reviews. It seems as if we have been lulled to sleep by the music that has been released in the Christian music subculture. So when anything comes out that doesn’t sound like everything else, it’s considered “creative”. It’s as if creative isn’t normally accepted in the rest of the Christian world. I wonder why that is…

One of the phrases that always kills me in meetings and songwriting sessions (I’ve used it too, so I’m not throwing anyone under the bus here) is “let’s think outside the box”. One of the reasons it kills me is because the box is fickle. Also, the box is different for everyone. You look at a really large church with a 5 or 6 figure budget for their creative ministry and think “they have the ability to be creative”. I would venture to say they just have more money to play with. We were all made by the same creative God.

Somewhere back in time there must have been a decision made that there was some music that was not appropriate for the church. As a result it all became bland. So now when people like Gungor and John Mark McMillan and people write some really awesome music that speaks truth about God is a way that doesn’t fit the mold that we made for church, it’s considered creative. I think it does a couple things when we say that. 1, it almost alienates those who write music that doesn’t fit the pop mold. 2, it makes everyone else that writes music for church seem lame with no real flair for invention. I always feel bad for Chris Tomlin when conversations happen. I don’t know the guy. We have never met. But whenever people talk about church music verses ‘other’ music, he’s the first name that pops up. Let me go out on this limb right now and defend Chris Tomlin. Chris has done an amazing job writing songs that speak directly to the glory of God. I sing his songs in my church with pride because I know that I’m singing songs that speak Gospel truth and they usher people into His presence. I would venture to say that he’s a creative person. Now, there are some people out there who think, hear, see and feel musically differently than others. You listen to their music and think “how did they get THERE?” We immediately think that their music is so much more creative than anything we sing at church on Sunday. I think that’s messed up.

We were all here because of a creative God. That means that by default we have His creative genes because He is our Father. Is there some sort of way to bring the creativity back to Christianity? At what point do we stop looking at churches and think they are “thinking outside the box”? Can we get rid of the freaking box? Just saying…

Those of you who haven’t spent much time with me will not know this. Those of you who spend a lot of time with me might not even recognize this. But whenever we are in a room or go out to eat, I try to sit with my back to the wall. It has been my thing for quite a while. I like it because it gives me a full view of the room and everyone there. I love to sit and people watch. Also, I can see what’s going on in the room and can assess situations from that spot. Case in point, when my family was on our road trip this past summer, we were sitting in the middle of this restaurant and all of a sudden a man comes up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. It freaked me out because I didn’t know where he had come from or what was about to happen. My girls were there and I went into protect mode. It didn’t end up being a big deal at all, but I wasn’t able to prepare for that moment and I didn’t like it. As a result, I always try to put myself in a position to see everything.

I also approach leading worship that way sometimes. I feel like I need to be able to see everyone on stage to make sure they are doing what I need them to do. The leader is generally in the front of the stage leading the people so everyone can see them and know where they are going. Most Sundays I stand in front of my band with the congregation watching me and wondering if everything behind and to the side of me is going to do what it is supposed to do. I know we rehearsed and had sound checks, but I always wonder in the back of my head about what just might happen. Should I be that worried about anything? No, not at all. And I know that. But for some reason I get stuck there and it is hard for me to get out. On my own. So I decided to try something different. I’m here at the church a fair amount during the week and most of the time I’m the only one here. So this past week (and a little bit later today) I went up into the sanctuary and just sat down in the middle of the room. Right in the floor. It was there that I had to come face to face with God and give Him control of the worship band and the singers and the tech booth and everything else that was under my supervision and “control”. At the end of the day, I’m not fighting for control with the others on the stage, I’m fighting with God. I will, and have, lost that fight every time. But I’m stupid enough to keep up with the fight.

See, I don’t do what I do because I’m so good at it. I don’t get the results that I get because of everything that I have done to research songs and the people and what instrumentation may work and the range of the voices I have and all that good stuff. Anything that I do is because God has called me to that place and then equipped me to do the work. So why would I try to take that control from Him? That’s why I have started sitting in the middle of the room. In the middle of the room, I can’t see everyone, but the One who needs to see all of me can.

In the middle of the room there is nowhere for me to hide. All of my insecurities, inadequacies and feelings of failure are out in the open. I notice how messed up I am. But the abrogation of my sins, inadequacies and insecurities by Christ’s death on the cross covers all those things up. So when a note is played wrong, God can handle that. When a cue is missed, God can handle that. When a light blows out in the middle of the service or a headphone blows in the middle of a song set, God can handle that. Most importantly, when your heart is broken and you’re lost and alone, God can handle that. When you feel like there is nothing for you to hold on to, God can handle that. Come to the middle of the room. There’s balance and warmth. The outside edge may seem like the place to be, but it’s cold and you’re causing things to tip over. Take the walk toward the middle. Then grab my hand cause I’m heading that way too.

11 And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

This passage is taken from 1 Kings. It’s the story of the well known prophet Elijah. He had just finished making the prophets of Baal look stupid and everyone was trying to kill him. Jezebel had even sent word that she was looking for him. I won’t go into the WHOLE story, but the passage up above comes when the Lord speaks to Elijah while he is in a cave. I was looking through this passage when something hit me. This still, small voice packed a punch.

When I was younger, this passage was used for many sermon wrap ups. As the preacher was winding down and “bringing it to a close” they would always mention how God doesn’t always come in the fire and God doesn’t always come in the earthquake, but in a “stiiiiiiiiillll…..small voice…” Then the church would go crazy and the music would start. The inference was always that we were looking for God to do that miracle so we would know He was there, but sometimes it was when we were quiet that He was speak to us and would bless us that way. And that made sense, especially since we were all looking for our blessing. Or something like that. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that this whole passage is wrapped in controversy. And that this still, small voice just told Elijah to handle some folks. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun is coming his way. So I got to thinking…am I the only one who was led to believe that the still, small voice was there for my blessings only? So I ask that question to you readers. This is an interesting situation to me. The older I get and the more I study and listen to people, I realize that we leave things out sometimes, or we will ‘adjust’ a scripture to make it fit a subject. Sometimes during that process we end up changing what was originally said which, in case you were wondering, is in fact wrong. This one is a little bit different in the fact that they didn’t change anything, they left things out. That silly omission. I challenge you to read the whole story because you will in fact see that the still, small voice brought a punch.

God has no problem getting our attention. He can definitely use fires and earthquakes and tornadoes. But sometimes, He needs us to really listen. There are times when I have to sit my kids down and give them instruction. When I get to something that I really want them to grasp, I get as close to them as I can and do my best to clear all distractions. I want to make sure that we are on the same page. When God speaks softly for the same reason. He wants us to be free of distractions. That doesn’t mean that everything He says is sweet and lovely and warm fuzzy. It just means, “Listen close. Don’t jack this up!” What comes after that is something you better pay close attention to. Write it down.

What is God trying to tell you? Are you not getting it because you’re expecting the small voice to contain sweet messages of happiness and chocolate? Make sure to give Him your full attention. Listen closely. You do NOT want to miss that message.

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.

Have you ever taken a dance class or watched two people dance together? Isn’t it amazing when two people know what they are doing and they just seem to glide across the floor with amazing beauty? Have you ever seen two people who don’t really know what they are doing? Isn’t it amazing just how awkward two people can look together as they create a treacherous sense of disharmony in movement? I have actually seen two people bump teeth while trying to execute a dance. I think that may be one of the more arduous visuals I have had the ‘privilege of experiencing.

Sometimes we try to take the lead in our own lives because we think we know the way. We try to guide the Father around the floor in an uptempo Broadway routine when he really wants to glide us gracefully through a waltz. He has a perfectly crafted plan for you, but you have to let Him lead the way. This is not one of those stories where I tell you that everything will be smooth sailing if you let him lead and all bumps and horror if you try to do it yourself. There are definitely bumps on the road as you follow Christ as well. However, when you are trying to lead and guide yourself then it’s like doing a dance you’ve never done while wearing a blindfold. You will probably fall or bump into something or someone. 

In this walk with Christ there’s only one person who knows the way. When we try to run out ahead of the leader we fall into traps and get stuck in ugly predicaments. I believe that’s the significance of Psalm 119:105 when he says he’s a lamp to our feet and light to our path. We only need to know where to step next. We have to trust that he’s going to lead us the right way. The same with a dance. You have to trust that your partner is leading you to where you both need to be in the dance. If you don’t do that and consequently try to go in a different direction you will find it increasingly more difficult to execute the dance and stay on your feet. If you aren’t aware, falling on a dance floor hurts.