The New Normal

I promise you, I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining, but sometimes I wonder if I am a glutton for punishment or just a plain idiot.  As the church has grown, the worship ministry has grown with it.  So, where once it was just me, the pianist, and the choir, we now have multiple worship teams that I am in charge of.  We have 2 Sunday morning worship teams that alternate Sundays, plus the worship choir.  And what a blessing they are!  God has blessed our church with so much talent and with a group that really wants to lead in worship.

  

But it’s getting to be a lot of people.  I looked at next month’s Praise Team/Band schedule and there are 27 different names on it.  TWENTY-SEVEN!  And that doesn’t even include the choir.  So, in 10 years, we’ve gone from 2 to 27.  That is unbelievable!  And don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful for each one of them.  And for the most part, I’ve gotten used to scheduling this many people each month.  They are broken up into 2 teams with Team 1 handling the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month and Team 2 handling the 2nd and 4th Sundays.  For months with a 5th Sunday and our 1st Wednesday services, I just mix and match from the 2 teams.   And the 2 team system seems to be working.  People aren’t getting burned out like they used to.  Plus, we are able to get some of our young people involved.  And they need as much experience as possible because some of us (me included) are getting older and won’t be around forever. 

 

But now that we are going to 3 Sunday morning services each week (in October), things are changing again.  We are now adding a full Wednesday night service each week.  And that means I get to create another team to handle Wednesday nights.  I already have a few people that will play each week, but the rest will be Sunday morning team members who have agreed to fill-in on a once-a-month basis for the Wednesday night service.  That means that every Wednesday night will feature a completely different group of singers/musicians.  YIKES!  

But here’s the thing.  We don’t have a choice.  Our church is growing and I have to have this new team to put people on to.  Right now, if a new acoustic guitar player or pianist or bass player were to join the church and want to get involved, I don’t have a place for them.  We’re kind of full.  And I don’t want us to ever be like that.  I know of churches where they have their worship team in place and there are no openings.  Like EVER.  I don’t want us to be like that.  If God brings talented singers/musicians to Mt. Pleasant who want to get involved, then I want to have a place for them. 

So, I’ll just keep doing my best to schedule everyone.  This is our new normal.  And in the end I believe it will work out very well.  But until we get to that point, just know that if I have a crazed look in my eyes, it’s probably because my brain is friedJ.

Worship Big!

Brad

Worship Moments

As a Worship Pastor who has been leading worship in churches, camps, and conferences for over 20 years; I have a lot of favorite worship moments.  For example, I have been a part of leading in worship when people have made commitments to follow Christ (pretty cool).  I have led in worship when revival has broken out.  I remember one time leading in worship and opening up the service for people to come share what God was doing in their lives.  I didn’t know if anyone would say anything, but people started walking forward and eventually there was a line to hold the microphone and share.  People began to share their struggles and God began to heal and restore their church.  I have also been a part of leading in worship when thousands of people were singing and raising their hands and hearts to God.  It’s pretty awesome to be in a room with that many people praising God.  Another one of my favorite worship moments is the final scene of the Passion Play each year. 

The choir, dressed in their heavenly robes, is singing as Jesus walks out in his regal robes and crown and the crowd stands and cheers.  And even though it’s not really Jesus, for the people in attendance, they are celebrating like it is Him.  It really is something special to behold!

I also have a lot of great memories of times of worship when I was just someone in the crowd getting to enjoy and participate.  I have been to concerts and conferences where the spirit of God moved in a powerful way and hearts were broken and lives were changed.  One of my favorite memories was when Kathryn Scott was singing “I Belong” at a worship conference and the spirit of God fell on that place and just flattened everyone in attendance.  One moment we are standing and the next moment we are all on our knees.  And it wasn’t one of those moments where you see people beginning to kneel, so you kneel as well.  It just happened.  And as we all eventually raised our heads and looked around, we realized that we were all on our knees.  It was Amazing!

But I believe my favorite times of worship are when it is just me in my office listening to worship music.  Often times I’ll find a new song that is really powerful and I will just listen to it over and over again.  I let the music and the lyrics wash over me and eventually the presence of God shows up and I get to experience Him.  For me, this is what it means to “Be still and know that I am God”-Psalm 46:10.  As I get older, my life seems to get busier and busier.  And these moments of stillness get rarer and rarer.  But when they do occur, I enjoy peace and contentment like no other time.

So, these are some of my experiences and favorite moments in worship.  What are yours?

Worship Big!

Brad

A New Song

As a worship leader, one of the things that I am always trying to do is figure out how to better introduce new songs to our church.  Well, with this week’s post I am going to try a new method.  Each month the worship team practices/learns/rehearses a new song to introduce to the church the following month.  For example, this past Sunday the worship team introduced “Your Love Never Fails” by Jesus Culture for the first time after spending the month of July learning it.  I think people liked it and I know that a lot of people were already familiar with it because the Newsboys version of the song was popular on Christian radio for a while. 

This month we are going to be learning a song called “Spirit of the Living God” by Vertical Church Band. They are one

of my favorite worship groups and are the worship team at Harvest Bible Chapel in Chicago.  This is a powerful new song of theirs and I really believe that our church is going to love it.  But, unlike “Your Love Never Fails”, this song isn’t on Christian radio.  So, hopefully, introducing it here first will help those who follow our blog become familiar with it before we introduce it next month (September).

 

To watch the video of Vertical Church Band performing “Spirit of the Living God”, hit the link below:

https://player.vimeo.com/video/135384782

Worship Big!

Brad

How Well Do You Point?

Recently, I read an article online about some of the “Secrets of Disney World”.  Some of them were pretty interesting.  Like, did you know that children are never reported lost at Disney World?  If a child is separated from their parents it is reported as a “Lost Parent”.  Because how could a child ever be lost at Disney World?  Or did you know that most Cast Members (that’s what employees are called) can tell you where the nearest restroom is in 14 languages?  With as many international visitors as Disney World gets each year, that’s probably the most important information they give out.  But one of the “Disney Secrets” really caught my attention.   When a Cast Member points (for directions, etc…) they always point with two fingers.  Walt Disney thought it was rude to point with one finger, so all Cast Members are taught to point with two.  It’s called the “Disney Point”.

Think about that.  Walt Disney thought it was so important to point the right way that they teach every employee how to do it.  Now, here’s why that is significant to me.  My job is to point.  Not at people or where the restroom is, but to Jesus.  It’s what I do.  And if you are a worship leader, it’s your job too. 

Being on stage in front of hundreds of people playing music is actually pretty cool.  In fact, if you're not careful, it can all go to your head. There are people each week that tell me how well I did, or how good the music was, or how much they enjoyed it.  And all of those things are fine and good.  But, the most important thing is not how well I did, or how good the music was, or even how much people enjoyed it.  The point of being a worship leader is did people have an encounter with Jesus?  Did they get to experience the one who saved their souls and gives them new life?  Did I point them to Jesus?   And if the answer is yes, then I did my job.  

So, how well do you point?  I'm going to keep working on it. I just need to decide if I'm going to use one finger or twoJ.

Worship Big!

Brad 

Forgive and Forget?

                Forgiveness is something that never ceases to amaze me.  I mean, think about it; is forgiveness really that easy?  Think back to when someone has done something to you.  We’ve all been on both ends. Have you forgiven them?  Are you still holding the grudge?  If you have forgiven, was it easy?  Maybe so, maybe not.   If not, then what’s holding you back?  Even more so, if you’ve forgiven, have you forgotten about it? Do you still think about the offense when you see the person who wronged you?

                How do you think God sees forgiveness?  If you’re a follower of Christ, does it ever seem like  God rolls His eyes or shakes His head at us when we ask forgiveness, especially when it’s something we’ve said “I’m sorry” for time and time again?  But, because we are covered by the blood of Jesus, it’s something He must do..?  I don’t think that at all.  My reasoning for not believing that is simply grace.  Before I continue, let me just say that I’m certainly not a “trust Jesus and everything will be perfect” type of grace person. I love grace because if not for it, I, along with the rest of us, would be hopeless.  Because of grace, we have a chance.  The grace of Jesus has no limits.  We as humans put so many limitations on ourselves that limitless grace is hard to wrap our minds around.  We certainly don’t use that as a license to become complacent but rather as motivation.  Proverbs 24:16 says that a righteous man falls 7 times, but gets up again.  We use that fact to keep getting up.  With that, I think about David.  If ever a man needed forgiveness that the grace of God offers, it was he.  The Bible says that he was a man after Gods own heart, yet he was a lying, narcissistic, adulterous coward.   God still picked him up and found favor in him.  That can be difficult to fathom.

                Romans 5:20 is one of those verses that I can’t ever seem to get over.   It seems fairly simple when reading it, but it’s powerful.  It says “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.  But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”  That basically sums it up.  Grace covers it.  There’s nothing you can do to run from God and that includes His grace.  Here is where it gets even better.  It’s forgotten.  Not only is your sin forgiven, it’s forgotten.  That means that your offense can never be the pink elephant in the room.  It won’t come up again.  It’s finished; done.  Think about when Peter denied Jesus after saying that he would be by His side, even to death.  When Jesus showed up on the beach to make breakfast, the denial never came up.  I’m sure it was heavily on Peter’s mind, yet Jesus never brought it up.  It was done.  You see, true forgiveness can never happen without forgetting.  I believe this is why the hardest person to forgive is you.  We so often beat ourselves up for something that God doesn’t remember.  Go and sin no more.  Move on.  Psalm 103:12 rings true when it says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”  That’s comforting, is it not?  So yes, forgive AND forget.

Peace,

Justin

Oh, How They Sing

One of the drawbacks of using IEM’s (In Ear Monitors) is that I can’t hear the congregation.  The choir is close enough that I can still hear them (even through my IEM), but I can’t hear the congregation at all.  I can see lips moving and hands raised, but no sounds at all.  And that’s what makes what happened on Sunday so special.  For the final song on Sunday during our worship time, I took out my earbuds, stepped down from the stage onto the lower platform, and really got to hear our church sing.

If you talk to worship pastors and ministers of music, one of their biggest issues is getting people to participate and sing.  And I’m not going to lie; we struggle with that at Mt. Pleasant as well.  There are times (especially at our 8:30 a.m. service) when I think I see more people yawning than actually singingJ.  But on Sunday at our 11 a.m. service, I was amazed at the overall volume and level of participation of our people.  It wasn’t a tremendously large crowd.  It’s the middle of the summer, so we won’t have really large crowds again until after school starts back.  We weren’t even doing one of the church’s favorite songs.  But, they sang and they sang out.  And if you were there, and you participated, then let me say THANK YOU!!!

It can get extremely discouraging to plan, practice, and prepare and then for no one to participate.  In a couple of months I’ll be going to my yearly worship conference and one of the things they will talk about is how to get people to sing and to participate.  They will have all kinds of tips (like not putting songs in keys that are too high to sing or constantly singing songs that no one knows) and I do my best to follow them and learn from them, but ultimately I believe getting your church to worship is a matter of the heart.  If your people don’t have a heart and a hunger for worship and to experience the presence of God, then those tips won’t make much of a difference. 

So, I’m thankful for the people of Mt. Pleasant.  I’m thankful that we are a worshiping church.  And it’s not because of me.  It’s because of you.

Worship Big!

Brad

Getting Older on a Worship Team

Recently I had a band member ask me when I was going to kick the “old guys” out of the band?  I believe he was being somewhat facetious, but I think he was also a little curious about what would happen to some of the older members of the team as new people come along.  I’ll be honest with you.  I hadn’t really thought much about it.

 

Because when I look at our worship teams (we have 2 Sunday morning teams) and the Worship Choir, I don’t see age.  What I see is what the church is supposed to look like.  Age-wise our worship teams go from 13 years old to some in their early to mid-fifties.  That’s a 40 year gap!  The Worship Choir is even more than that.  It’s about 50 years!  But isn’t that what the church is supposed to look like?  People of all ages working together to serve the Lord.  Shouldn’t that be the model for all ministries?  Having multiple generations of people serving together, locked arm in arm in ministry.

So many times when you look at churches, everything they do is segregated by age.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe a lot of the segregation happens because people feel more comfortable around others their same age.  But there’s something powerful and moving about people of different ages coming together for ministry.  It’s the Titus 2 model of the older teaching the younger.  But along with that, there’s also the element of the younger invigorating the older.  They really do help each other.

So, to answer the original question of kicking the “old guys” out of the band; no, I don’t believe I’ll be doing that.  Once you are in the band, you’re in it until you are ready to step away from it.  And I’ll leave that up to the individual members to recognize when that time comes for them.  Until then I’ll just keep scheduling people the best I can while giving as many people as possible an opportunity to get involved. 

Worship Big!

Brad