For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble. - Hebrews 12:10-12
Lately it seems as though God is really working on my heart in a lot of areas. He’s working on my heart to convict me to have a strong yearning for prayer and time spent with Him. He’s working on my heart to have a compassionate spirit towards every one I come in contact with. And He’s working on my heart through many people I love and trust to make me a better leader.
Yesterday, I was gently challenged in how I could improve some areas of ministry to make things better. To be honest, I’m not quite used to that yet, although I’m very grateful. In previous ministry experiences I was used to being free to do what I needed to do and then only being challenged about something after the negative consequences had already happened. If I would have been gently disciplined in these areas before certain things happened, I think those consequences would have turned out much differently!
So, how do you accept criticism, especially criticism that is constructive and meant for your benefit? Do you get angry and try to justify what you’re doing, or do you say, “Thanks so much for caring enough about me to prevent negative consequences and to direct me towards many more positive ones!”
Take some time today and thank God for the discipline He’s doing in your life, either through His Word or through other people.
Many of you know that I consider Bob Kauflin (director of worship development for Covenant Life church) one of my distance mentors, although I’ve never met him. Well, he’s got a new book out, Worship Matters - Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God, and I’m excited to read it. The trouble is…I don’t have it yet! :-) When I do get a copy though, I will definitely be posting a review. In the meantime, I just wanted to make any other pastor and worship leader aware of this great new resource. You can order the book here. You can here a great interview with Bob Kauflin here.
Sunday was a bit of an odd day at Living Word for me, as my wife and I had the pleasure of being involved in the nursery! As a result of this, we weren’t able to hear the message during the worship time, but I was able to listen to it online this morning. It was a great privilege to work in the nursery (a little crazy, but a great privilege!)
Sunday songs:
- Almighty (Watson)
- Blessed Be Your Name (Redman)
- Blessed be the Lord, God, Almighty (Fitts)
- All Creatures of our God and King (traditional hymn)
The worship team did a great job this past Sunday. It was nice to just be in the congregation with no responsibilities. The one thing I would love to see us all work on is transitions between songs. Helpful things to do are to wait until after the first song to encourage the congregation through spoken word (instead of talking before the first song and having silence in between the first and second), or picking songs that are in the same key that can flow seamlessly into one another. But other than these minor things, my mind was led to focus on Jesus and I was able to sing to Him with minimal distraction, so thanks worship team!
I always have to laugh when I sing “All Creatures,” however, because I always picture the skit of Mr. Bean in church trying to sing along and not knowing where to end the “alleluia’s!” Alleluia! Alleluia! Allelu—ya..ya…y..y…ya! 
Pastor Wade shared a fantastic sermon on ‘profitable pain.’ God will use anything to bring glory to Him, and in order to grow in our faith, often the process will be painful. We can’t short-circuit this process of growth by trying to avoid pain. And God is with us through all of it. Good stuff and one that I will be listening to at least one or two more times this week.
Because our Truth Project hosts were out of town and we had a ministry event Sunday night, as was able to share a relaxing evening with family, which was so needed.
A great day.
- PLAY IN TIME. Period. The sign of a good drummer is not how many fills he can play in time, it is the fact that he can play in time. Buy a metronome that you can hear over your playing and practice with it every time you play. Be able to be as steady as a metronome. Use your metronome during practice and worship services as well.
- Learn to control your volume, especially if you use an acoustic kit. If you have a hard time controlling your volume, ask if the church will buy you a drum shield, or buy yourself some brushes or hotrods (rute/tala).
- Vary your fills and play them skillfully. It’s very difficult for a band to get back on track if a drummer’s fill ends a beat too late or half a beat too early. Be able to nail your fills every time. If you can’t, simplify your fills until you can.
- Learn different patterns. Four on the floor doesn’t work with every song. The country “train” beat won’t work with every song. Hint: A waltz beat won’t necessarily work with a driving 6/8 song as much as you might think 6/8 is the same as 3/4.
- Practice. Practice. Practice.
Do any of you have any back to basics tips for percussion (bongos, congas, shakers, djembe, etc?)? While I do play percussion I haven’t had much experience with it in corporate worship settings and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
For those of you who don’t use RSS to read iamanoffering I apologize that the site keeps looking different on you! There was some slight problems with the last site theme I was using and I needed to switch again. I will be doing a custom design and switching one more time in a few weeks, but I apologize that things keep changing!