My Worship Revolution

Sam is on the worship team at CLC.  Sam is just about to launch a new ministry at CLC, a recovery ministry called Deliverance.  Sam has an awesome story of God’s forgiveness and redemption that we were able to share in the service this morning.  It was awesome getting to have lunch with Sam on Friday and hear his story as we filmed his testimony.  There is so much more to it than we were able to share in a small amount of time.

So if you ever have the chance, take Sam out to lunch, and get to know him a little better.

OK, it’s Saturday night, and I’m about to go to bed.  As I’m getting ready to lay my head down I remember my very odd, scary, and vivid dream from this morning.  Thought it was just interesting enough to share with y’all.

So I’m getting ready to lead worship.  I know it’s CLC, and real life we own a building, but you know how dreams are.  For some reason it was set in a school cafetorium or somethin.  We’re about 10 minutes away from service starting.  People are comin in.  All of a sudden, one of my worship team members, Matt Hale, and his wife jump up on stage to do a special number.  They start talking about this song they’re gonna do which I never was told about, they just decided to do it.  (They would never really do that, by the way.)  I’m telling the sound guy not to keep their mics off, and he looks at me like I’m speaking Greek, so I just let it go, frustrated and determined to find a way to keep this from ever happening again.

I realize that service is about to start and I never got to practice with the band cause we were getting everything else ready.  And the drummer wasn’t able to be at Wednesday nights practice.  I get up to start and notice the white bridge thing at the top of the guitar, you know, the top of the first fret where the strings rest and go out to the tuning nuts, is broken in half and slipping around.  I try to start anyway but my guitar won’t stay in tune.  People are getting restless.  I tell our lead pastor, Ed, to stall or somethin.  He tries, but stands there looking at me instead as if he really doesn’t know what to do to stall.  Some people are starting to leave.

All the while I am trying to find a guitar somehow.  And somehow I think I may have ended up with one.  I guess that parts not quite as vivid.  Anyway, as I remember it, as people are grumbling and more are leaving, I try to start a worship set.  The drummer has no clue what I’m playing, and for some reason neither does the rest of the band.  It all falls apart miserably as the last of the crowd is walking out of the room, resigned to the fact that church isn’t gonna happen that morning.

I must have some serious issues.  Maybe I need therapy.  Has anyone else ever had dreams about failing miserably at a job that you do regularly?  Anyway, let’s hope that church goes significantly better than that in the morning.  Good night.

Since being in Santa Cruz we are making all sorts of great new relationships, but of course we always miss some of the great relationships we’ve been maintaining from down south.  One of the bummers about leaving our community there is missing some major events in some major peoples lives.

One of those relationships that Rachel and I really believe will be a lifelong friendship is that of Darrenn and Jenny Platt.  So I had to congratulate them here on the birth of their second child Emma Platt!  After years of waiting for God to give them another child, and lots of ups and downs that we didn’t get to know them through, this kid is definitely a second gift from God to add to their family.  I’m bummed I can’t be there, but I can’t wait to meet her…hopefully soon!!!

Thanks to Lori Velarde for the pics!

I know there’s still a whole lot of you down in SoCal that read my blog…in fact…probably most of you.  So I thought any of you working toward a job in worship arts, or some of you who might know of someone, would wanna know about an intern opportunity for the summer.

Carlos Whittaker posted the other day that he is looking for an intern at Sandals Church in Riverside for this summer.  It’s a great church and I have a feeling you could learn a lot there, so head on over here and check out the details!

I’m pretty much a night person.  Rachel’s out of town.  That means I’ll be in bed late most of the time she’s gone.  Right now it’s almost 2am and I’ve OD’d on Andy Stanley.

This morning a swallowed a whole book of his and as you can see from my screen shot above, I’m sitting here watching him teach.  And I’m loving it.  I heard a while back through several blogs that North Point‘s Drive Conference was available online free.  I thought about checking it out but never had time.  Tonight I started it.  I’m just finishing the first session and I’m ready to go out and kick some butt.  Maybe I should watch the rest of them in the morning before I go to work cause it makes me wanna storm the gates, ya know what I’m sayin. 

OK, almost done.  I think I’ll finish up and go to bed.

Seriously though, at what point do you hit such a low that this is what you have to do to keep your career alive?  And he used to be so cool as Michael Knight.  What happened?

So today I’m taking a day away from the office to hang out with Jesus, do some reading, and some strategic planning/mapping/whatever you feel like calling it for both connection and worship ministries.  So far it’s been nice.

I’m not much of a fast reader, but this morning I sucked down a whole book by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits – Creating Community.


Really helpful book about North Point‘s small group philosophy, culture, and implementation.  Really got my head spinnin thinking about all sorts of questions.  Opened or closed group?  (That’s a huge one for me now.  What’s your experience been?  Which do you prefer, church staffers and attenders?)  How do we help get people into groups?  Leadership development.  Casting vision.  All good stuff.

After lunch I cruised down to a little coffee shop just down the road, The Ugly Mug to get away, get online, and get some stuff on paper…errrr…file?  Anyway.  Cool place to hang and be around all sorts of people.  I love people watching.  Unfortunately they only take a card with a minimum of a $5 purchase and I think I left my cash at home.

Maybe tonight I’ll cruise by Mr. Toots, recommended by my friend Elliott, see if I can catch some good live music and plan more for worship stuff.  This is nice.  It helps me to get away in places where I can be inspired when I’m planning stuff out.    

Finally got out for my first surf session in Santa Cruz, out at 38th (for you locals).  Thought it was kinda worth noting.  I was nice cause it’s been too long since I’ve been out.  Unfortunately the waves were just OK, and I just aint that good (so the waves are always my excuse).  We did however come across a gnarly beached whale on our way out.  Check it out:

Supposed to give it another go Saturday, so maybe I’ll catch some good rides then.

I dropped Rachel off at the airport this morning to visit SoCal, which means I’m all alone until Sunday.  I’ll be missin the fam.  She took Caleb with her, so the upside is I will get to sleep past 5:45 for a few mornings.  Maybe I’ll watch a couple guy flicks with the sound cranked up real loud while she’s gone.  Or play a little PS2.  Random post.  Out.

If you found this page because you just Googled "g-string", you might want to visit this site.

For the rest of you, welcome to another installment of Worship Confessional.  This week I decided to do something a little daring…some clips from our service.  I say daring for a number of reasons.  One is, it’s just a camera in the balcony.  Not only is it not mixed, it doesn’t even come off a board.  So it is what it is, but it will give a glimpse of what we’re doing.

It’s also daring because I’m my own worst critic, all the way around.  Even in regard to the presentation of the stage there’s a lot we are in the works to improve.  So this is where we’re at now, and as I do this once in a while, you can see the changes take place.

Alrighty then, enough said.  Here’s what our week looked like here at CLC in Santa Cruz: