Merge Worship

My favorite place to worship in my church is...where the kids worship. Our 4 year olds-5th graders all worship together in their own worship space on Wednesday nights. I love all our other teams and can experience the Lord wherever on our campus, but that is my favorite place to be during worship. They jump around and do some things you can't get away with in "big" church. (some of that is for good reasons) They worship with such abandon, innocence and enthusiasm.

Something about kid's worship always gets me. The Bible says that, "Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise". Interestingly enough, in this passage (Matthew 21:12-16), Jesus had just gotten a little ticked with the manipulation of people in the temple and cleaned house. Afterwards, the blind and lame came to Him and He healed them. What should have been beautiful about this visit to the temple is that the Messiah was finally there. He had come to bring purity and healing to His house; to re-establish it's purpose. The chief priests, some of whom were benefiting from the scams, were furious. The children, on the other hand, cried out and were saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David". Their innocence allowed them to see what the spiritual leaders refused to recognize.

Kids worship with a purity and innocence that is so easy to lose as you get older. When children worship, really worship not just sing songs, I find myself broken. There is nothing like seeing kids with hands raised in worship, singing like it is the most important thing they could ever do. And if they start crying as they worship; forget about it, I'm officially done leading. I can't even continue when I see kids truly experiencing Him. Having a 4 and 6 year old seals the deal. When I hear them sing from their heart, in the car, the house or on Wednesdays at PowerKids my passion for Jesus is renewed. I love seeing kids experience God's presence.

I was praying with Judah, my 6 year old, the other day about having a "Transformer's Mind" (another topic) and I sensed the presence of the Lord, so I asked him how he felt during the prayer. Did he feel anything "different"? His response..."I felt kind of tingly. Like I knew Jesus was there. Kind of like spidey-sense." I don't know about you, but reading that just made my spiritual "spidey-sense" go off. Lord help us to keep our childlike sense of wonderment, amazement and enthusiasm for Your presence.

In our staff meeting this week, I felt like we should talk about how to deal with inter-personal conflict. I came up with 4 guidelines for dealing with conflict. This is by no means an all-inclusive list, just some of my thoughts.

1.Always Look Inwardly before addressing faults in others.-Jesus said that we shouldn’t try and remove sawdust from someone else’s eye before removing the plank in our own. (Matthew 7:3-5) Everyone knows that the eye is a sensitive area to be poking around. As a guy who has contacts, I know what the pain of missing the contact and hitting the eye is all about. I wouldn't want to do that to anyone else. Refusing to look inwardly before dealing with inter-personal conflict can cloud our vision and make us do more harm than good for those we serve with.

2.Confront Directly-While it is acceptable, and sometimes admirable, to seek advice from other trusted leaders, if anything is going to be solved you have to address the person directly. Matthew 18:15 says that “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.” Another passage says that love covers a multitude of sins.(1 Peter 4:8) As leaders, I believe we should cover those that serve around, with and over us. We should not, however, ignore attitudes or actions that are detrimental to our team environments. We should confront head on and in love.

3.Find the Deeper Issue- So many times, the issue, or conflict, is indicative of a deeper issue. We should Ask the Holy Spirit to help us overlook their actions and give us discernment to find the "heart of the matter". We can spend our time diagnosing symptoms, or we can find out what is truly happening in the heart of the other person, and ourselves, and ask God for deep, inner healing of our relationships.

4.Seek to be Reconciled over being right- Relationships are always more important than issues. That doesn’t mean that we can’t, or shouldn’t provide discipline or correction, but it means that when hit with an impasse, that we should lead the way in humility and reconciliation. 1 Corinthians 5:18-19 says; "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." I'm personally thankful that God isn't counting my sins against me. I want desperately to be like Him in that regard. That doesn't mean that there's is never a time to part ways or ask volunteers to step down, but I believe it does mean that regardless of how relationships shake out there is always room for forgiveness.

"I been trying to get down to the heart of the matter. But my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter..." Ladies and Gentlemen, Don Henley. Modern day prophet. (said with tongue in cheek)



I had a friend call me this week with a worship team issue this week and there were so many things swirling around that it seemed like there were 15-20 issues happening at once. Generally when I've seen this happen with my teams, or individuals on my teams, there is one thing causing most of the other things happening. The "heart of the matter" either personally or corporately.

It is easy as a leader to diagnose and treat symptoms, but it takes guts to cut through the junk and find what is really causing the issues. Someone may ask why someone else gets to lead the band for a week or someone else leads a song. Why didn't I get asked to do a solo? Why did you feel like you had to bring in a guest leader while you were away? Sometimes you may never hear those questions at all and someone will just become a little passive-aggressive in rehearsal and you won't know where it came from.

This is where having relationships with those on your team is key. Let's say that "Johnny" starts fuming that he didn't get a guitar solo this week. What's the root issue? The closer I am to "Johnny", the better I'll be able to diagnose the "heart of the matter". It could be pride. It could be a lack of self confidence and the need for the approval of others. Maybe the last worship leader he served under didn't appreciate his gifts. It could be any number of things ranging from private sin to a crummy day at work. Those are all very different issues with different solutions, but if I only react to the surface thing then I'll miss the opportunity to lead "Johnny" well.

We all want to grow together as believers and sometimes that takes a willingness to dig past the surface. It doesn't mean that it will be easier. It's easier to tell "Johnny" you shouldn't react that way, than it is to tell "Johnny" that God is trying to deal with him about pride or asking him to join you in prayer to figure out what triggers this in him.

One of my passions is to see God release destiny in others. If I'm to be a true agent of change and release in others, then I have to push pass my "will gets weak and my thoughts start to scatter" and ask the Holy Spirit for His discernment and clarity to help the "Johnnies" in my world and myself get down to the "heart of the matter".

I had a great chance to worship with two great friends this weekend. Tony Sutherland and I were at my boy Mike Craig's church. My friends Wayne and Jaron showed up as well and it was nice to just have some free worship time with friends. Mike and I have literally known each other our whole lives. We are a month and a day apart and our parents attended church together when we were born. Relationships with that depth are rare and I'm very thankful for him and what his family and friendship mean to me.

During one of our worship times I felt the Lord tell me to just seek Him for who He is. I so often find myself seeking the Lord for specific things. Some direction here. How to handle a situation with a worship team member there. Here an issue, there an issue, everywhere a issue, issue. I felt a distinct sense of needing to lay some of that down (although there is nothing wrong with praying for/through issues) and just spend more time seeking Him just to know Him more.

So tonight in my office, I was praying for some of our worship team, for some friends and also just talking to the Lord asking Him more about Him. I was specifically trying to understand a certain aspect of what He is doing in my life that I don't understand. I heard this in my heart; "Sometimes you just need to embrace the mystery. Don't get so caught up in trying to "figure" Me out. My ways are higher than yours. My thoughts are higher than yours."

There are so many things I may never understand. Why the God of all the universe would love and choose me. Why He would come and die. Why He would create us in the first place knowing that that was the eventual outcome. Why He speaks through people like me when several people are more qualified. Eternity? How does it work?

I'm glad to serve a God that I can't figure out and am going to take more time to "embrace the mystery" of who He is and just enjoy Him.