Hey, I thought I’d post a link really quickly to a recent post on www.lindnerphotographic.com. They are some pictures Bekki took of Hannah & Henry that we had printed for our house. We were actually given the frames, (Which are tall and narrow) and we had to find some pictures to put in them.
Here’s the Link: http://www.lindnerphotographic.com/2009/02/hannah-and-henry/

Do you ever feel like you’re at war with yourself? Not as in split personalities, but in terms of you desire to have a perfect worship service and your desire to please God. Are these even at odds with each other? In this week’s episode, David and Kevin talk about trying to find a balance between our desire for perfection while at the same time not loosing sight of what’s important. Kevin talks about a recent disaster service he went through at his church and some of the thoughts he had regarding what was an appropriate response to the weekend.

This is and issue that I’m sure many of us deal with. We would love to hear how you deal with the perfectionism problem. If you have some advice on this subject, or you would like to respond to the advice that we give in this podcast, feel free to comment on this post. You can also join in the conversation by joining our network, or fill out the contact form, or sending us an email. david@worshipministrycatalyst.com or kevin@worshipministrycatalyst.com.

We truly appreciate your faithful listening. We hope that you find these podcast both entertaining and informative in helping you take the worship ministry you are involved in down a path of excellence. God bless you in your week of preparing for the weekend.

Click here to go listen to the podcast

Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I’m starting a Church Leadership Reading group on www.goodreads.com. It’s a reading group that will read through leadership books and then discuss how they apply to our churches and our leadership roles within the churches.

If you’re interested, follow this link to our group. If you don’t already have an account at good reads, you will probably have to register for one, but they’re free, so there’s no downfall to that. Plus, it’s a cool way to keep tabs on what books you read, if a book you want to read is getting good reviews and a “to read” book list.

I hope you’ll think about joining and that I’ll be talking to you over there soon.

In this weeks episode of the Worship Ministry Catalyst Podcast we talk about Leadership, and specifically about vision. We’re taking part of our discussion from the book “The Leadership Challenge” by by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.

We realize that leadership is a huge topic, and is something that we all have a lot to learn about. We also realize it’s probably the most important topic for all of us. Whether we’re in a leadership role as a staff person, a worship leader or even for those who aren’t in a leadership role, leadership is still very important.

If you have some thoughts on vision and leadership, please feel free to leave your comments on this post, or to send us an email through the contact form.

Click here to go listen to the podcast

I came across this quote in a book I’m reading, The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes, Posner.

In some ways, leaders live their lives backward. They see pictures in their minds eye of what the results will look like even before they’ve started their project, much as an architect draws a blueprint or an engineer builds a model. Their clear image of the future pulls them forward. Yet visions seen only by leaders are insufficient to create an organized movement or a significant change in a company. A person with no constituents is not a leader, and people will not follow until they accept a vision as their own. Leaders cannot command committment, only inspire it.

This quote really strikes a chord with me right now, as one of the biggest thoughts on my mind is ownership/committment. I realize I am not fully responsible for the actions of others, but it is my responsibility to inspire and lead people into a place of committment.

This weekend is kind of our get back into gear weekend. We’ve been doing some low key stuff for the summer, but now that everyone’s going back to school and their routines are getting formed for the year, we’re starting to ramp things back up. Our band was almost full this weekend. I’m doing my best to fill all the slots every weekend for now. That’s totally against my philosophy, but a necessity for right now. I hate the idea of filling slots. It just promotes a lack of ownership, when what we most desperately need right now is a sense of ownership. But, we’ve also got the pressure of being good every weekend for now, so it’s a choice I have to make.

This weekend was youth weekend. We would have liked to have done more that centered around the youth and get the youth

• Indescribable
• Unchanging
• Welcome & Intro to youth weekend
• Parent prayed for youth
• My Savior, My God
• Jesus Paid It All
• Youth Worker prayed for youth
• Sermon by Youth Pastor
• Closing prayer by Senior Pastor
• Enough

It was pretty good. I’ve been sick, so I had to let the other vocalists to most of the leading. I sang where I could but didn’t want to wreck my voice. She does a pretty good job. She’s one of our leaders who does more than just sing when she’s leading, she’ll prompt the congregation too – which is a big part of worship leading.

I’ve been forming bands for the last few months, and next week we start into a rotation of those bands, so hopefully starting next week we’ll be building some ownership and be raising the quality of what we do on a weekly basis around here.

I just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be back to blogging – probably tomorrow. I’ve been on vacation the last couple of weeks, and decided it would be good to take a little break. But, fall is here and it’s time to get back into the swing of things. So you’ll be hearing more from me again soon.

This week was great, we had a great worship time with a trio of musicians up there for the weekend. Keys, Bass & Drums. No vocalists except for me. And it turned out pretty good. The upside – I got to experiment with my coldplay keys technique and try to come up with some catchy hooks for some of the songs that are normally acoustic or electric driven, so that was kind of fun. At the same time, doing that takes away from my ability to focus solely on leading people in worship. If we had another vocalist who could lead some of the songs that would have helped quite a bit.

Here was our Set:

• All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises
• God is Great
• Welcome
• Trading My Sorrows
• Blessed be Your Name
• Message
• Heart of Worship

We did some old songs and some newer songs. The first two songs are still somewhat new to the congregation (even though they’re not new). It was a good weekend. Last night seemed to lack energy, but this morning did not. It felt as though people were really engaging and choosing to worship.

I do have to say though that I’m looking forward to next weekend when we’ll have a full band. It should be really good!

For more Worship Service Reviews Click Here!

This weekend was another good weekend. We had a new drummer this weekend – which was great. It’s great to have someone else who’s willing and excited to play. He’s got a big learning curve to pick up a bunch of new songs as he first gets going, but I’m sure he will do great.

We did:

• Rest in Your Peace (my song)
• Portland City Fest Promo
• How Great is Our God
• Holy is the Lord
• VBS Highlights
• Sermon
• Everlasting God

Bill was talking about rest and did a tremendous job talking about how we need to rest like a three year old rests with their mother. It was a great image to get people thinking about rest. Myself having a 2 year old knew exactly what he was talking about.

We only did three songs as a band, and once again, I had another vocalist lead one of the songs. This weekend it was great to be able to do that. It allowed me to focus a little more on working with our new drummer and making sure he & I were on the same page. It also helped for me to be able to fill out our sound a little bit as we only had drums, acoustic & keys.

This weekend had the potential to go really bad, and it went really well!

For more reviews see Sunday Setlists.

I wanted to write some more about routine. I talked about it last week, and got some interesting feedback on that post. I wanted to talk about it on a very practical level. It’s another way that routine could be a bad thing. Remember last week I said there are some situations in life where routine is good. It’s good to have a rhythm to your life. It’s good to have things you can rely on. On the flip side of that, if everything in our life is predictable – it’s all routine – we will stagnate.

Life will become like the water in tire swing. At first you might not even notice it. Then, while you’re swinging one day, you spill a little bit of water on you, and notice it’s kind of gross. You try to get the water out, but it’s a tire – so it’s extremely difficult. It’s very hard to turn a tire upside down fast enough to get All the water out. There will still be some stinky water left in there. And before you know it, it will rain again, and fill the tire back up with water which will seem to bring life to the old water, but soon the old water takes over and makes the new water smell.

But what about our God who never changes? True. God never changes. But (hopefully) God is always changing us to be more like him. It’s when we stop changing, or stop allowing God to change us that we stagnate. Yes, God takes the old and makes it new. That’s what he does. But that’s not our tendency. Our tendency is to stick to what we know. We cling to what has worked in the past, even thought the magic is gone. It worked at one time, so if we keep doing it, and keep trying hard enough, it has to, it absolutely has to work again. Right?

It doesn’t. It rarely does.

So, as we approach our relationship with God this week, and how we respond to him worship, maybe we need to get out of the routine of what’s worked in the past. Maybe we need to keep the tire from filling up with water in the first place. Maybe we need to keep it moving in new directions as much as possible so that the rain can’t fill it

“Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.” Psalm 33:3