My Worship Revolution

As I continue to lead our worship community at Revolution alongside our lead team, every day and every week brings a new set of learnings and growth. Here’s a great article by Phil Christensen that Dave turned me on to about some of the learnings that come from being a lead worshipper. [via]

After interviewing hundreds of psalmists, I can safely say that worship leaders are a special breed. They nurture the souls of sensitive singers, and encourage brusque sound guys to be…less blunt. They see the gifted drummer within a goofy 9-year-old. Worship leaders sharpen their mastery of Scripture and musical chops in the same week. They calmly walk into meetings where they’ll receive near-lethal doses of personal criticism.

Through it all – praise God – these worship leaders will somehow emerge with tender, Davidic hearts. I suspect it’s all part of God’s greater strategy in conforming us to the image of Christ; pressure turns coal into diamonds, and the constant rub of a grain of sand creates a pearl. The unique pressures of a psalmist create a unique kind of perspective and character.

Such “Worship Team Wisdom” probably contains the essence of what we need to know about life; it worked pretty well for King David. Over the years, I’ve repeatedly found myself drawing on principles learned while working with worship teams; I’ll share here my personal top ten bits of Worship Team Wisdom.

There’s only One Person in the audience. There are lots of people out there to please (and some of them are quite insistent). At the end of the day, though, One Person matters most, and His name is Jesus. Seek first His approval. (Mt. 6:33)

Everybody needs to tune to the same pitch. We pass around the tuner every time we gather, and find that this guarantees we’ll be in tune with each other. Similarly, if we’re all in fellowship with God, we’ll also get along together beautifully; our differences simply become rich harmonies. (1 Jn. 1:7)

Sometimes we’re at our best simply because we spent quality time together. An afternoon together as friends can tighten the groove of a bassist and drummer when they play together that evening. God has commanded a blessing when people “dwell together in unity.” (Ps. 133)

All our plans are subject to change. I have yet to experience a worship service, a wedding or a work-week that went exactly as I expected – or wished. Wise people are prepared to bend; they also know that these changes are often directly from the Hand of God. (Pr. 16:9)

How we respond to change is probably more important than whatever we had planned in the first place. When we’re thrown a curve, the way we handle it reveals much – maybe everything – about our character. (Job 1:21)

The song is bigger than the singer. The message we carry is more important than we are. When the cheering masses greeted that donkey at Jerusalem’s gate, he might have felt pretty good about himself, but I doubt he was ever received that way again. Without his Divine Passenger, he was just another donkey. (Jn. 3:30)

The person in charge of your “sound” can help you or destroy you. If your work has to be channeled through someone else, make sure of their competence and character. A lot rides on the shoulders of the middleman. (2 Kg 5:21ff)

We never really leave the platform. The wireless microphone is never truly switched off. Strangers, co-workers, friends and family are observing us every moment of the day. We are – 24/7 – as Paul said, ambassadors for Christ. (2 Co. 5:20)

God often turns our worst mornings into miracles. There are Sundays I step down from the platform thinking I should resign and get a job at Walmart. These are usually the same days someone grabs my hand, and – tearfully – thanks me for leading them into the Presence of God. I don’t know how God transforms my clumsy moments into masterpieces, but I’ve seen Him do it over and over, and not just with music. Trusting that His transforming power is working in us (and often in spite of us) should keep us both humble and confident (Ph. 2:13).

The song might not end exactly as we rehearsed it. Musicians must follow the leader’s cue as he closes a song; life’s that way, too. Sometimes there’s a key change. Sometimes we finish a Cappella. Once in a while, the song even has to be cut off early. Our times are in the skillful hands of the Chief Musician, Whose timing is always perfect. (Jn. 20:22)

As I read through this article, there were some great reminders and some things that I think all of us have learned even in the past few months as our community serves God together. Many of us at Revolution, whether leading the worship, playing an instrument, singing in the choir, or running the sound board, are lead worshippers and can relate to the experiences noted here. This is a geat journey that we are on, and I look forward to many more learnings as it continues.

I got a new site to host my blog! I wanted to make it a little easier for people to be able to find my blog, so with Chris Koble and geekhost as my web hoster (shamless plug: if you need a site go to him!) I finally got it all set up. Obviously it is still available at the old address for those of you who may have bookmarked it already, but for the rest of you it should hopefully be easier to find and share with others. In the near future I hope to add some extra pages with some past videos and stuff, too.

This morning 11 of us met at Starbucks in Seal Beach for the surfing connecting event.  10 guys and one lone lady!  We had a good morning of hanging out and catching some waves together.  It’s been a while since i’ve been out, so I definitely need to make more time this summer to surf, even if that means early mornings which I hate.  If you enjoy surfing and you wanna join in the fun sometime, shoot an e mail over to Tim Lasch so he can let you know when it happens again.  The group usually goes out on the third Saturday of the month and meets at 8ish at Starbucks in Seal Beach.
And now it’s time to do some studying for my most recent class, Research Methods fro the Study and Teaching of Scripture.  I can tell this will be my most challenging class in the program (Vanguard SPS) yet as far as workload as well as just my own understanding of different Bible passages and methods of interpretation.  Then this evening the India team meets to have dinner with Suresh Kumar from Harvest India.  I am really looking forward to that.  Dave shared with me some more info he has learned about our plans for India this August and I am pumped about going.  I’ll be sure to share more as the details come.

Last night our life group got together for a fun evening at the home of Bill and Jennifer Gibb. It was a game night and our first social event as a life group. We had a blast! Lots of games and snacks. I’ve found that game nights tend to be an excuse to be competitve and get fat!
We played Scattegories for a while, then Tanya kicked our butts twice in a row at Apples to Apples (that is one of the greatest games ever) and then we had a little battle of the sexes with a guys vs. girls game of Taboo. The girls pretty much killed us in that one. Here’s a few fun pics from the night…

It was great hangin with our life group. Rachel and I feel so connected to our group and it’s been great to get to know new people and continue to see new people joining us. Anyone who wants to join us, we meet in downtown Long Beach at Pacific and 7th every Tuesday night at 7pm. Email me for more info! If you’re not currently in a Revolution life group, come get plugged in!

Three Trees Theater, a production company based out of ROCKharbor has a musical coming up that looks like it should be pretty cool. It’s called Songs for a New World and it’s a musical about four individuals living in New york City on the day of 9/11. I’ve heard the recording of the music from an original production of this show and it was really good. I look forward to checking it out some weekend between July 8th and July 23rd. Check out this flyer to get more info.

So I’m sitting here in our luxury single-wide office at Revolution Church today when the whole thing starts creekin and shaking. Must have gone for like 20 seconds. After a little bit of online research I find out it was a 5.3 earthquake centered in Yukaipa. It’s been a while since I felt one that strong.

That’s the third one in the area in four days I guess. I felt the one Sunday before service too. I thought someone had bumped my chair. Kinda crazy!

This past Wednesday was my 26th birthday. Since I spent that whole day working, Rachel and I spent Saturday together to celebrate. She took me out to dinner that night at Belmont Brewing Company in Belmont Shore. She treated me to Filet Mignon and man was it good. I love steak!

Before that, though, we spent the afternoon at the Long Beach Aquarium. It was my first visit there, and it was really pretty cool to check out all the animals. I have always been kind of fascinated by marine biology I would say. We had a great time checking out sharks, petting sting rays, and even seeing some Hawaiian dancers and stuff who were there for the Pacific Island festival. As we were walking through the tropical fish section, looking at the sea life of Palau, we had the privilege of coming across their biggest tank there just as it was feeding time. If you’ve never been around for that before, the diver in the tank has a microphone and shares all about the fish with the help of a staff member near you as he’s feeding the fish. Tons of fish came out to eat and they were all over the place! Not only that, but it was amazing to see in a matter of minutes how much more vibrant some of the fishes colors were when they were eating.

Above all, I think Rachel and I both came away with a sense of what an amazing creator God is. She looked at some of the fish there and just said, “What in the world was God thinking?” Like this Leafy Seadragon:


I mean come on! That doesn’t look like an animal! It like a plant with eyes or something! Or Jellyfish. I would look at them in complete amazement as to how their bodies even function. What is so overwhelming is the number of different creatures God came up with. It is a reminder to me of how awesome God is and how much bigger He is than me. He is so creative and made so many amzing things, yet he chooses to care about us above it all. He gave us a soul and the ability to return love to Him. I love the lyrics to Indescribable by Chris Tomlin.

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea / Creation’s revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring / Every creature unique in the song that it sings / All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable,You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name / You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable, Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim / You are amazing God

Between attending Creation on Friday night and then seeing all that on Saturday, it really does make me want to fall to my knees as the song says and just praise God for how awesome He is. Psalm 148:1-7 says:

Hallelujah! Praise GOD from heaven, praise him from the mountaintops;
Praise him, all you his angels, praise him, all you his warriors,
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, you morning stars;
Praise him, high heaven, praise him, heavenly rain clouds;
Praise, oh let them praise the name of GOD- He spoke the word, and there they were!

He set them in place from all time to eternity;
He gave his orders, and that’s it!
Praise GOD from earth, you sea dragons, you fathomless ocean deeps

Have you taken time lately to just stop and thank God for all that He created? When I take the time to ponder the scope of all that He is and all that He’s done, I can’t help but be blown away!

So this past Friday night, Dave and I got free VIP tickets to see Creation at the Crystal Cathedral. OK, Dave got the invitation and I got to tag along. He wrote on his blog about it, so I’ll fill in a few details from my perspective.

As he shared, we spent time talking to a bunch of guys in suits at a reception before going to the Cathedral and having to wait over an hour for the show to start due to “technical difficulties.” Throughout the whole reception, before the show started, and while we were waiting for the computer to be replaced, they talked quite a bit about how amazing the show is. I wasn’t really expecting a whole lot when I went so at this point, I’m thinkin it better be really good the way they talked about it.

I think that because I wasn’t expecting a whole lot, that helped me to enjoy it even more. There were parts of the show that were amazing and incredibly professional, and then other parts here and there that were very unprofessional. The most amazing aspect was definately the Cirque Du Sole – esque aerial performers. They did a great job of tying in some really cool acts and they were very well done. Also, as I expected, the lead performers were great. This didn’t suprise me much at all knowing that they hire Equity performers.

They also used lots of large scale animal puppets – kind of Lion King – esque. Most of those were pretty cool looking. They had one OK one that was a T-rex, which was kind of cool, but didn’t look so good when it went extinct. I’m sure that’s something they’ll tighten up in the nights to come. That was one theological point that I disagreed with in the show. They inferred the creation of Dinasaurs and then their extinction followed by the rest of the animals afterwards. Personally, I would hold to a more traditional view of creation with the days in Genesis being literal 24 hour periods and puting dinosaurs on the Earth at the same time as man. Of course I recognize that they did a lot of research in creating this show, and I’m sure there are Christian scholars who hold to their interpretations. I just tend to agree with the others.

Overall it was a well done production, especially for a church, even if it is Crystal Cathedral. I’m still not sure whether or not I think it is worth the amount it costs to go, but if you are able to fork out the cash and go, it will definately be an entertaining evening. They did a great job at really engaging all your senses in the production and at least got you thinking a little.

Anyone looking for an apartment in Long Beach? Do you know anyone looking for an apartment in Long beach? If so there is a two bedroom condo for rent directly 2 floors above me on Pacific and 7th. It will be available July 1st. Email me if you want some info. You can just walk down a few flights of stairs every Tuesday night and join us for life group!

Last night I hung out with 13 other people from Revolution (actually one was from another church) at the home of Darrenn and Jenny Platt. It was for an event we’ve been doing called “Going Deeper.” It really hasn’t been a very highly planned and programed event like many at Revolution. We really just spread the word that it will be a night of home based worship and prayer. So that’s what we did last night.

Christian came over with his djembe and we just worshipped Jesus through songs, prayed, and took time to listen for His voice. It was such an awesome night! I wish I did stuff like this more often with people. It is always such a refreshing time and I just love worshipping God with friends in a relaxed, casual setting. No set list. No planned agenda. Just start singing and let God lead the way. My prayer for Revolution church is that more and more people would long for times of intimate worship with Jesus and create atmosphere’s like this on a regular basis. That more and more people would show up at these night in a desire to know God better.

For me it was a much needed night of filling from God’s spirit. Afterwards, my wife and I hung out for a while to watch the season finale of Survivor. I know, not connected at all to worship and prayer, but we had a blast watching with Dave, the Platt’s, and some of their friends. I was pulling for Ian, but oh well. Tom’s cool too.