Merge Worship

My heart has been a little wrecked recently. There's more than one explanation as to why that could be the case but none are really worth rehashing here. I was surprised by the way my heart has been revealing itself recently. Just the other day I sat down at the piano and this chorus came flowing out:

I want to tear down the walls of apathy and make believe

Take off the mask I wear of everything is perfect here

I wonder if I will ever find a place where I can just be me

I want to live...honestly

Now I hadn't been doing a ton of thinking about living honestly but I will say that I live (and have for the past couple of years) in a state of what I call "holy discontent". My heart has been heavy with the desire to be a great leader, a phenomenal Dad, a wonderful husband and a difference maker in the world for His sake. And the truth is that on any given day I feel like I stink at a number of those things but I don't know who I'd actually say that to. I have a great wife, amazing family and wonderful friends but some days I still feel all alone.

In many ways I think I just want to be able to be real. Human. Honest. Broken.

Do you ever wonder if you'll ever find honesty? Do you ever dream of a place where you can share all your stuff and hear truth and love in response? I do.

It's been a minute or two since I last blogged. The family and I have been on vacation and I'm just getting back into the groove.

I wanted to share something with you that I read before leaving for vacation. It's called "A Jesus Manifesto" and it was written by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola. Not the most obvious pairing on the planet, but a great testament to the truth that they've agreed to in this document. Here's a taste of what they have to say:

What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.

I challenge you to take a few minutes and visit their site. Read the manifesto and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart. If you're like me (and let's hope you aren't ;-), expect to be confirmed, convicted, challenged and motivated. My prayer is that we would all embrace Him and make it our mission to make Him known.

I love helping others figure out how to navigate the issues going on in their life/team/church/organization. It makes me feel alive to help other people. I've given advice over this last month on social networking, worship team policies, connecting a firewire hard drive to a USB only computer and church service formats. I love seeing others succeed. I have my bouts with personal ambition and jealousy when others go further than I do, but at my heart I'm a servant leader who believes in supporting the dreams of others.

I'm becoming convinced that one of my strengths moving forward will not be knowing all the information but knowing where to find information. I am building more relational capital by sharing information freely than I ever did by trying to keep my sources on lock down and appear smarter than I am. I have my former church to thank for that to a large degree. They helped open my heart even more to how to bless others.

There is a paradigm shift from being the guy (or gal) with all the answers to being the gal (or guy) who can steer someone to thought and on their own process to find answers. It's one of the reasons I'm always linking to others. Sometimes it can get annoying if you turn into some one's personal google, but people truly appreciate someone who knows where to find answers.

Do you share your knowledge freely? Any thoughts on how this applies to your world? I'd love to know your thoughts.

This is a part of the Tribes Group Blogging Project based on Seth Godin’s book “Tribes”.


“Leadership happens out of the corner of your eye, in a place where you weren’t watching”.

It’s so true that the genesis of great leadership often goes unnoticed. One of the great challenges of leadership, in my opinion, is seeing that potential and developing it in others. To embrace their hope and help them pursue their dreams.

Seth says that everyone knows the “leadership tricks” but it’s really about creating an experience for your tribe. If that’s the case, and I believe for the most part it its, then leadership is about helping people connect. Helping them “care” about your cause. If your “cause” is getting people clean water like in the case of charitywater.org then make them feel the thirst of others and see clearly how they can make a viable change. If your cause is making people better bloggers then do what John Saddington (yes he gets 2 separate links. he's the guy who started this tribe up.:-) does and constantly give people tools to do more and go farther.

One thing I’m noticing more and more about leadership is that it really cares about others. It reminds me of when the love chapter of the Bible says “love is not self-seeking”. The leaders I truly admire are like Tasmin Little. (mentioned on p.123) She cares more about getting classical music heard and appreciated then she does about the profit she’s losing from giving her CD away. Seth did the same thing by asking people to give away their audio copy of his book at the end. Or guys like Shawn Wood and Anne Jackson who used their influence in the last year to get people to buy shoes, sponsor children and provide clean drinking water for people in need. By caring more about the message than the bottom line, these people inspired me to find out more about their cause and to spread the word.

I wonder. How many people could we affect if they could see that we care more about their connection than our reputation? If they understood that your chief concern as a leader was seeing their dreams soar? I loved Seth’s last line about hope. “Without it, there is no future to work for.”

Where would we be as leaders if we oozed commitment and hope? Better yet, where would our “tribes” be? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately on the commitment it takes to generate change. Creating culture rarely happens overnight. It (usually) means doing the back breaking work of plowing fields and tearing down walls. This came clear to me on Monday. I was helping my Dad spread mulch in their yard. We'd already picked up a truck full of mulch and we were doling out load number two. I realized in that moment that most things of value take TIME.

Take on the challenge
Invest in the outcome
Marry yourself to the vision
Engage the process

One tough thing about being a leader is that part of you wants to look for the easy way out. Whether that means acquiescing to those who want to refuse change or settling for the status quo. That's much easier to do. And frankly, there are a lot of people willing to settle there.

I'm not one of those guys. I want to see people move forward and the Church grow and innovate. My prayer is that more people will be willing to spend TIME on seeing change happen.

What ways do you take the TIME to build culture where you serve and lead?

btw...my friend Chris said I should say that I just came up with that acrostic so no one would think I stole it from a book. :-)

I had a thought today. (congratulatory notes accepted) Could one of the reasons that people leave in leadership transitions in churches be because we as leaders have failed to connect them beyond ourselves to the source of our passion and drive? Could it be that we may have led well, but not really introduced true community to the people we led? I do understand that sometimes people will leave when you exit. It's happened to me in places. I get that people enjoy different styles and connect to various leaders/pastors in a special way. I still resonate and connect with people I helped lead/pastor in various churches but, if I'm doing my job well, I'm steering every one's heart toward Him. A proof that ministry is done well, in my mind, is that when you leave people stay because their connection to God is deeper than a personal connection to you.

One of my personal practices in this area is to deflect all the praise to God and accept criticism for myself. Not to be self deprecating, but to steer people to God in the good and to walk with them through the bad. I'm finding that continually refusing to embrace praise and pushing to embrace community is one way to deepen the bonds of friendship and also build the relational capital to help steer people's hearts past minutia to what really matters.

When it's all over, I doubt the Lord is going to ask me how well people resonated with me personally. I feel He's much more likely to ask how much of my life I spent steering people to the only true hope in this world.


How do you steer people closer to Jesus and deeper into community?

I was challenged and inspired by Piper's post today. You can see the original link here, but here's the text:

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

• grace gets bigger;
• Christ gets greater;
• his death gets more wonderful;
• his resurrection gets more astonishing;
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
• its global extent gets wider;
• your own sin gets uglier;
• the devil gets more evil;
• the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper;
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won’t. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel.... For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

I don't know about you, but these are all the things I want to see happen in my life. How's the Gospel becoming "bigger" to you?

There is a push in my life to get back to the basics of what really matters. A calling back to prayer. A calling back to family being priority. A calling back to the words of Jesus and how His character should shape my life and decisions. I heard that John Maxwell said that "Most Christians are educated far beyond their level of obedience." To say I've got a long way to go would be like saying Yao Ming is kind of tall.

What I do find is that when I'm willing to strip away everything I take security in outside of Him; God is waiting to rip down the walls and make my adventure with Him bigger. One of the ways I'm doing this is by reading the Gospels. I've joined with Pete Wilson on his 28 day journey through Matthew and trying to take the time to ask God what He really wants to do in my heart and life.

This process of trying to become more like Him always leads to a tug of war for my heart. Am I really willing to step away from all the things that pull me from Him? Am I really willing to die so He can live? Am I really ready to live life always preferring others? Do I really want to be like Jesus?

It's so easy to get caught up on the theories of how to do church. The right things to say. The right songs to sing and lose focus on the ultimate right in life:

To know Jesus. In the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection.

Anyone else down for getting back to basics? How do you make sure your faith is still focused?

I love twitter and facebook. I really dig the idea that I can connect to other folks around the country/planet and get to know them. I've shared phone conversations/coffee/lunch/hang out time/halo/iChat/tokbox with people I either a) wouldn't met otherwise or b) lost touch with, all because of the new and beautiful world of social networking.

But, some (if not most) of the people I'm called to serve in the local church setting don't get it.

There's even some that don't like it.

Think it's a waste of time.

Not interested in connecting over facebook/email/twitter.

Folks that in my social networking world wouldn't be "cool".

People who are just as much in need of life change and someone to love them where they are as all my connected friends. People who need friends and go about sharing life in a totally different way than I do.

I really would love it if everyone was like me and communicated and shared life in the same way. But then again, wouldn't that make life boring? :-)

I'm trying to figure this out because, at the end of the day, what matters to me is seeing people connected to and embraced by a God who loves them whether they're "plugged in" or not.

How do you connect with "offline people"? You can talk about them freely because they'll never read this anyway. ;-)

I had two conversations this weekend that left me with this impression:

Just because we've always done it one way, doesn't mean we should never try another way.

It's easy to get set in traditions. We experience something great that feels right and over time we settle into routine. Routine becomes ritual and, if we're not careful, we can let sacred moments become sacred cows.

Which leads me to this. In addition to "never say never", should we add "never say always" to our lexicon? I know there are things that are constant. But when it comes to our mode of communication or our format of service, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to drop the word always.

I'm a firm believer that God is, has been and will always be a creator. With that in mind, I'm never saying always again. Oh wait, I can't say never either. :-)

What do you think?

I'm coming to the conclusion that there are some things only prayer can fix. You'd think being a worship pastor, I'd already be rolling with that knowledge. But, if I'm honest, I try to fix a lot of things from my small reservoir of knowledge and personal leadership skills.

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2009/02/04/translation-tool-makes-global-a-reality/

You need to check out this new chat with live translation. Very cool stuff.

Thanks LifeChurch.tv for making the Kingdom better connected.

I had this thought last night that I might have spent a lot of my time gathering knowledge without gaining wisdom. Once Tony Evans said that "wisdom is putting feet to your what you know".

How many times have I read a great book and not implemented what I learned?

How many times have I had an amazing conversation with another leader only to walk away and stay basically the same?

How many times have I read a passage of Scripture or devo and not put feet to it?

How many times has the Lord revealed Himself to me and I've left unchanged?

I have a large appetite (no fat jokes...this time) to read, connect and grow. In this new year I need my life to be about gaining wisdom not gathering knowledge. I'm endeavoring to live the words of James 1:22

"Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. Do what it says"

And all God's people said...amen.

Just saw this from Leonard Sweet.

"Even Christians are so much better at wearing crosses than bearing crosses."

How true. How painfully true.

How can we encourage each other to live lives that are cross bearing instead of cross wearing?

Here's a little recap of what went down this weekend in my world.

Worship Set:

• Beautiful One
• Friend of God
• What a Friend We Have in Jesus
• Communion
• Forevermore

Random thoughts:

• It was my first Sunday in a new place so that was a little nerve wracking, but God was faithful. Kept the worship set simple and singable.
  
• No drummer for 2 of 3 services. I would've normally been a little bugged by this, but everything felt like the glass was half full for me. The band reacted well and I think we were still able to carry enough energy.
  
• Great response from the congregation after the services. Seems like everyone is ready to jump into what God wants to do next in worship here at Grace.
• I'm definitely a bit of a switch from the norm, but the worship team (band/vocals/AV) all reacted well even when I went off the script.
• I really enjoyed getting to lead the people of Grace in worshiping our great God together. (we even had a few clappers in the 11 service)

I think God has brought me to a "weighty" and "challenging" season, but I'm looking forward to tackling this season with my new church family and seeing us become who it is He is calling us to be!

So I'm up late tonight. Praying about this new leg of my journey. Praying for the people God has called me to serve and lead. Listening to some worship music and reading some Psalms.

Just trying to wrap my mind around all He is doing in this new season. I think the weight of this new assignment is hitting me tonight. (ok. it's actually morning)

One thing I know. I'm not doing this alone. Someone gave my Mom Proverbs 4:12 which talks about wisdom guiding us in unhindered steps.

This is not the time for me to try and do things on my own. I am determined to be obedient to Him and accomplish His vision in the new year.

The only way I can do that is by getting Adam out of the way and trusting "Him who has begun a good work" to finish it.

So, as you think about the be year, what big things has He placed in your heart that you can't do without Him? Let's dream together.

So. I'm moving my family in 5 days to a new state. A new city. A new church.

It's always an adventure when we start something new together. This will be Mercy and Judah's first real shot at trying it out. They are 5 and 7 and this is the first move we've made that has hit them. They've been real troopers and have been looking for the positive almost all the time. That's not to say it's been easy. When their peers prayed for them in kid's church:


There were tears shed. By all of us.

One thing I love about transition with Misty and my family is that it pulls us tighter together. It's almost like we know we need to lock it up tight. Knowing that we've been blessed with each other is an amazing feeling and I'm never more aware of how blessed I am then in these times of transition or difficulty.

Our friends have gone beyond any of my expectations to show us how much they love us and Misty has been working like mad to get us ready. She is the rock in my world. I don't tell her I love her enough.

As we've traveled across NC (which is where we're moving back to) the anticipation and anxiety of the move has grown. The reality is settling in.

I'll be leading a whole new set of people in worship next Sunday. They've never seen me lead before. The thoughts are racing through my head.

What if they don't like me?
I can't wait to grow with them and watch them grow.
I'm pumped about where God is going to take us.
I am stoked about the team I'm going to be leading with.
Is Judah's school going to be as great as we think it is?
Will Mercy and Judah find new friends easily?

In short (or not really short) life is just that side of crazy right now. We'd appreciate your prayers and, if you're in the Raleigh area, hit us up when we move down. We're trusting God for great friendships there!

I know this post is a little less efficient and pretty than some of my others, but one of my friends asked me to keep this blog a little more "real" this year. We'll see how that pans out.

btw...I'll be leading worship here in the new year. Drop by if you're around.

I hate it when God throws the gauntlet down on me. I was reading Jesus' words this morning on the work of the Holy Spirit and came across this challenging passage.

"Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can't bear it now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting His own ideas; He will be telling you what He has heard. He will tell you about the future." (John 16:12 & 13 NLT)

So, here's the BIG challenge for me out of that. If I'm truly being led by the Spirit then should I "not be presenting my ideas" but "telling what I've heard"? Should I hide myself in prayer until I have clarity about the "future" God has for those He's called me to lead and walk beside?

What a challenge and a call to prayer. How do you play out the call to lead with clarity? How do you "not present your own ideas" and present "what you've heard"?

Consider the gauntlet thrown.

I have the blessing of leading multiple groups of worship teams in our church. I thought I'd share here what we're talking about this week.

I was praying for you guys and our teams this morning and thought it might be good for us to discuss life “beyond the set”. It’s oversimplifying things to think that our sole function as worship leaders and leaders of teams is to create and execute good worship sets. One of the mandates on Greenbrier is the desire to pour into the lives of others. I certainly don’t belittle the work of putting a set together, rehearsing a team and leading people in worship. But, there is another aspect to what we do in the way that we invest in the lives of people on our team.

I’m not just talking about a top down, “the leader sure cares about us”, kind of vibe but a familial feel on our teams that communicates that we are here for each other “beyond the set”. It is so very easy to get into execution mode, but let me give a real world example. How can we best equip our CrosStone (Jr. High) students as worshippers moving forward in their lives...

a) by teaching them the value of rehearsal, excellence, musical passion and exemplary worship enthusiasm?

or

b) by teaching them the value of transparent, real relationships that allow us all to learn and grow from each other and focus our lives on others?

I think both are important, but ultimately who a person is matters much more than what they do. I view our worship teams as another avenue for discipleship and growth in the lives of the people that choose to be a part of worship here. It’s more than a set list. More than a musical experience. More than an exercise in creativity. Worship here should and will go “beyond the set”. Because, ultimately, worship is about more than a musical expression but about a life lived in obedience to Him and committed to seeing His purpose accomplished in the lives of those He places around us. How do you play out worship “beyond the set” with your teams and where can we improve?

I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.

I got a question from a friend about being asked to speak on "Responding to God in Worship". I thought I'd share my response here. I told him that I would start with:

a) we respond to God through worship because it is our created purpose
b) worship is not a narrow window involving music in corporate gatherings, although good, there is a greater purpose in worship
c) worship is ultimately what pleases God most; and obedience is what He enjoys that more than anything else we can bring

• Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.(1 Samuel 15:22)
• Old Testament worship including offering and sacrifices. God makes it clear here that He truly delights in obedience.

d) with obedience as the chief criteria for worship, then everything we do, (work, fun, music, worship as we normally define it, reaching out to someone in need, sharing Jesus, resisting temptation) can fall under the umbrella of worship

What would you say to someone on the topic of response to God in worship?