i am an offering

Well, the FLY Convention has come and gone, and it was amazing. It’s still taking a bit to recover from, but I’m getting there slowly but surely. I’m looking forward to getting into the habit of posting more training and teaching posts on here, so look forward to that.

A bit of wisdom that was shared with me today from a precious time with my new pastor and great friend and mentor (who will be starting his own blog as soon as I get the new website up, right Wade?

• Don’t let cost compromise vision, ever. If you’re at a point where you’re compromising your vision because of lack of funds, the vision wasn’t thought out well enough. Hang on to vision at all costs. I’ve heard this before, but it was great to have it reinforced this morning.
• Keep it simple. Even if you think something small that someone asks you to do won’t really matter, it probably does. Stick to what you should be focusing on and don’t waver from it. Be okay with saying no.
• Passionate people need encouragement, or they’ll become frustrated very easily. I hope I can always be an encourager.

And praise God for the amazing weather and fantastic waterfall that we sat by and prayed under. I could feel Him near to me today, and I have been refreshed. Leaders, I have never realized the importance of spending time with those under your charge until someone has done it for me. Make sure you are investing in people and showing them how much you care.

But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.” Psalm 73:28

By the way, there is a fantastic series of posts on mentorship that begins here.

I was going to blog on the difference between playing piano and playing keyboard, but frustration with designing this blog has led me to a different post.

 I’m decently average at quite a few things, including internet languages.  I can find my way around html code, can sort of decipher php code well enough to understand it a little bit, I can sort of do css code. I can run most computer applications fairly well, but….

I’m only great and well-skilled at a few things.  I am not skilled enough to tweak and design this blog on my own, as I found it after breaking a few things and having to reinstall a few things today, so I really need to ask for help from someone who’s really skilled at php and css.

So often we as leaders think that we can do everything ourselves.  We live in a society with D.I.Y. TV shows and magazines.  But we need to realize that we need to ask for help.  Asking for help shows that we posess a few things that leaders should have:

• Humility. We aren’t afraid to admit that we don’t know how to do something and can’t do it.
• Trust. We need to be able to empower others and let them know that we trust them with something important to us.
• Encouragement. We need to able to encourage others and help them use their skills whever they can.

 It is especially important for those of use who are young that we ask for help and never assume that we are smarter than those who are in authority over us.  It’s Biblical to submit to authority and as Peter writes

“Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
1 Peter 5:5

 I think it’s vitally important that we get help for things that we can’t do on our own.  So, when this blog is finally looking the way it’s supposed to, don’t credit me!

Are you a life-long learner?  I used to be so bored with school and used to not care about it at all.  I am working through some issues in my life that really hindered how good of a student I could have been.  And I am finally learning to actually want to learn.

Part of learning is being responsible.   And unfortunately for me, I’m learning responsibility the hard way.

If you have (or are planning to get) a nice instrument (for example, a Martin DXME Dreadnaught acoustic guitar), take care of it!  You know that little booklet that came with it that says, “The care and feeding of your Martin guitar?”  Yeah.  Read it!  You know the advice that the people at the music store give you?  Yeah.  Listen to them!  You know those little humidifiers that you can buy to keep your instrument in good shape?  Buy them and use them. You can also get a hygrometer which monitors the temperature and relative humidity in your instrument case.  Way cool.

Unfortunately, a temperature change and me not taking responsibility for my instrument has caused the top to cave in and dry out.  There is maybe some hope that with re-humidification I can salvage it, but I’m not getting my hopes too high.

 So, the lesson I have learned is that if you have an opportunity to learn something new, do it.  Don’t just glance at the instruction booklet and toss it to the side and hope you’ll do things right.

With that in mind, if you are a life-long learner and you are interested in knowing more about things involved with worship within the church, Worship Leader magazine is going to be offering online correspondence courses that look awesome!  They range from song-writing to production to sound mixing to personal accountability.  They are going to be offering these courses for $39.  You can find the general information here or you can register here.  The only problem I have with these is that they are only 1-hour long classes.  $40 for 1 hour seems a bit steep, but at least they’re offering them!

So, always keep learning, and hopefully you’ll avoid learning the hard way.

Please let my guitar be okay, please please please

*Well, as of today, March, 2nd, my guitar is actually looking like it’s going to be revived!  I’ve been making sure to keep it humidified and trying to get it back to the right level of humidity, and right now there’s still a little bit of a warp in it, but it plays beautifully again!  Hopefully it will completely un-warp.

Craig Groeschel just taught a great series which included thoughts about people doing too much and therefore getting burnt out.  He’s also started a series of blog posts on the subject.  I think this concept applies to everyone in church ministry, and it’s something I desperately need to work on.  So, worship leaders/tech directors, are you one who does the following:

• Won’t allow another worship leader to lead because you’re afraid they won’t do it right?
• Always micro-managing the video projection or mixer instead of teaching your servants to do it?
• Not equipping your servants well, and consequently having things fall apart when you happen to be gone?

I have been guilty of all of the above and need to shift my thinking.  There are a lot more, but the truth is, Biblically, we are called to assess what our gifts are and know what we do well; realize we can’t do everything, so therefore equip others to help us; and let go of our pride that says that it will only be successful if we do it.

 When we constantly need to do things ourselves, we do two things:  we give ourselves the burden and we make ourselves the focus.  We need to let others help lighten our loads so that they, too can be involved, and we need to make Jesus the focus and not ourselves.

Hello all, sorry there haven’t been any posts for a while.  There has been lots going on.  The one thing that I want to focus on is a quick post from Scripture on how we are to cope with the loss of a pastor.

Sometimes, we tend to get comfortable in following a human leader, whoever that leader might be.  We place high trust in that leader and then one day, that leader might not be there anymore.  Maybe we expected it, maybe we had no clue.  But how do we respond?  By keeping our focus on Jesus Christ.

The Corinthian church was dealing with a similar situation.  The church had just been officially formed after the day of Pentecost, and the big names were teaching.  Paul, Peter and Apollos were all major teachers and were teaching great things.  But in the midst of their teaching, the Corinthian church started placing their trust in the men, rather than in the Man they were teaching about.  Divisions began happening and Paul felt it necessary to encourage and challenge the church to unity.

“Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgement.  For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.  Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos” and “I of Cephas (Peter),” and “I of Christ.”  Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Corinthians 1:10-13

In this difficult time of a loss of a pastor, we need to be careful that we do not fall into this trap that Paul is talking about.  We need to make sure that our foundation and trust is in Jesus Christ and His Word.  As Paul goes on to say later in chapter 3:

“For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?  What then is Apollos?  And what is Paul?  Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave oppurtunity to every one.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.  So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth….For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s buliding.  According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it.  But each man must be careful how he builds on it.  For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:4-7; 9-11.

As we go through a time of transition, let us remember that our foundation is always Jesus Christ.