i am an offering

So, I would love to continue to do some practical music theory posts, but I’d love your help. What kinds of things would like like to learn more about? What are some common questions in your worship teams about music theory? Shoot me a comment or an email and we’ll dive in again next week.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on “How to Be an Offering” and, since that is the theme of this blog, I thought I’d catch up a bit! While the past ones have been all focused on Scripture passages (which I will continue to do) I wanted to just share some thoughts on simple ways that you can be an offering with your time.

I’ve been thinking about my roles in life a lot lately. Follower of Jesus, Husband, Father, Graphic Designer, Worship Leader. While our lives are ultimately to be offered to God in worship daily, we are also to serve others and offer our lives in each role we are in. How could fifteen minutes a day serve others that come in contact with your given role? I’ll list mine:

• Follower of Jesus - fifteen minutes a day of mediating on God’s Word (I would suggest much more than that, which I’m still working on, but fifteen minutes is a good starting point)
• Husband - fifteen minutes a day of small housework items. Christine has just gone back to work after maternity leave and is exhausted. If I spend fifteen minutes a day doing easy work, her stress load lightens exponentially. She can spend time with our daughter at night instead of seeing messes around the house.
• Father - fifteen minutes a day praying for my daughter. (Again, this could and should be way more, but I’d rather pray for her fifteen minutes out of my day than no minutes at all!)
• Graphic Designer - fifteen minutes a day going through a tutorial and learning new techniques. I always want to learn how to better my skills.
• Worship Leader - My fifteen minutes in God’s Word already impacted this one, as a worship leader should be first and foremost a student of God’s Word, then a musician. Fifteen minutes a day practicing my instrument(s). Now, granted, some of you who read this play several instruments so this could turn into 45 minutes a day. But think of the impact it will have on your confidence and skill level!

I just planned one hour and forty-five minutes of my day (I’m including fifteen minutes for three instruments). That short time will impact my roles, those who come in contact with me in those roles and my impact on God’s kingdom significantly more than an hour and forty-five minutes of many other things. How much TV does the average American watch??? I don’t even watch that much TV at all, but I know I could be spending my time doing much more beneficial things.

Sunday was again a great day in the life of Living Word (as always).

Songs for the service:

• Lord Most High - Harris/Sadler
• Sing to the King - Foote
• How Deep the Father’s Love for Us - Townend
• Jesus, I Come - William T. Sleeper

We’ve been talking about “the day the universe changed” for the last two Sundays and it’s been really interesting. This past Sunday we talked about the blame game and were definitely challenged to examine ourselves. We were also reminded of the promise in Genesis 3 that the woman’s offspring (Jesus) would bruise his (the serpent’s) head. Literally blow a crushing blow to him and vanquish him. I thought it was awesome that Sing to the King has the exact words, “Satan is vanquished and Jesus is King” in it. I had no idea that there would be a section on “how to vanquish Satan” in the message. I love it when God works like that.

We had another awesome Truth Project small group meeting with some tough discussion. We talked about the question “who is man” and how society generally teaches that man is basically good with no tendency for evil. The Bible teaches the opposite. It was a struggle for some people in the group to understand how children could be born into sin. I have to admit that I was having a tough time coming up with an explanation. I know the Bible says “in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 139) and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3) but how do you argue that children are sinful to someone who doesn’t believe that the Bible is true (our group believes the Bible is true, I’m talking in general here)?

I also assured the group that even though children are sinful, there is somehow a mystery that they can have great faith, even at the infant stage (at least I’m fairly certain the Greek implies this in the New Testament where Jesus talks about having the faith of a child). This is something that we can never understand, one of those amazing mysteries of God that we can take joy in.

I’ve never considered myself a mentor before. Maybe I should start considering myself one, as I do really enjoy teaching and training, but I’ve never actually thought of myself like that before. I’m too young, I’m not educated enough, blah blah blah. But, in reality, whenever you are able to teach someone just a little bit of something and continue teaching on it, even just a little bit, you are a mentor.

My pastor honored me be actually calling me his “blogging mentor.” Pretty cool that even though it might be slightly in jest, he views even small tips about blogging as being mentored for him. Thanks, Wade.

In the meantime, you should check out his very touching story about his relationship with his high school math teacher. It’s a bit of a long read, but well worth it.

Coming tomorrow, a LONG overdue review of Craig Groeschel’s newest book, “Going All the Way.”

It’s now been over four years since I’ve been to a conference on worship and music. I am definitely missing it. The last conference I attended was Created to Praise in St. Louis where I witnessed the birthing of Paul Baloche’s latest arrangement of How Great Thou Art. That was pretty cool.

Anyone have any conferences near the SD, MN, NE, IA area that they would recommend or has there been one super-standout moment God has given you at a conference recently?