THOUGHTS ON WORSHIP

Hey guys,
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Awesome time of worship this last Sunday! I felt very freed up to do a little free-flowing, spontaneous worship. Let me explain a little bit about what I mean by that. I know that this can be something that is "new" to many people and many churches. I will use this as an opportunity to do a little bit of teaching on it, as I am not sure where you are all at in regards to this. This last Sunday when we came out of "Here I Am To Worship," I felt prompted to shift back and forth between two chords (happened to be E and A last Sunday) and just sing, spontaneously, words and melodies that aren't learned or written down, but flow from my heart. I also tried to free up the congregation to sing new songs to the Lord in such a way. This may take time for people to catch on to, but I believe that it is a beautiful thing. Many times when I have done this, I have sensed an overwhelming presence of the Hoy Spirit, not only upon me, but moving among the congregation. I believe that it is really about letting the Holy Spirit flow through us during this spontaneous worship...as if our spirit and the Spirit of God within us are freed to release expressions of worship in unison. This may be a hard idea to grasp, but I challenge you in your own times of worship, maybe when you are listening to some worship music where there is a break in the singing and chords are being played, to just begin singing to the Lord, new unlearned melodies, as unpracticed lyrics that flow from your heart to the heart of God. Again it may take some time to get used to, but I believe that your spirit will be edified as you explore this kind of worship to God.
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This last week, Tanya Gellatly, a very close friend of mine and Christy's, lost her baby after being pregnant for three months (Please pray for her if you don't mind). Jesse called me at let me know that evening, so I stayed up most of the night praying for Tanya, and writing a new song. As I went into a time of prayer for her, I asked God how He felt about her pain, and not just her pain, but about when His children suffer this kind of pain. I believe that God gave me this new song I am calling, "Comfort Song," which is written from Jesus' perspective. It is really a song from Jesus to His hurting children I believe. I am going to sing it after the message this Sunday as I believe it is not only for Tanya, but for the body of Christ at Whipple Creek, and maybe the body of Christ in general. So there will be no need to learn it, but I just wanted to give you a heads up about it. I am going tonight to record the whole song with Andrew tonight up in the studio, so that we can have CD's available to people who want them. I think the song will go well with Brett's message on "How Do We Know God's Will," as well.
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Much love to you all. Can't wait to see you this Sunday.
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Grace and peace,

Christian

THOUGHTS ON WORSHIP

Hey worship team,
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Crazy times we live in, huh? I just got done watching the stock market fall to a record low again followed by the presidential debate. You know what the cool thing is? God is bigger than our country's financial dilemma and bigger than the next president...in fact HE IS THE MAN. I vote for Jesus as the ruler of not only our nation, but of the world, and on more of a personal level, our hearts. God is so awesome!
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This last weekend we've had other crazy stuff happening within our own worship team. Aiden wasn't there because he was in a really bad car-wreck, being hit by a drunk driver going 60 miles an hour. Matt wasn't there because he was in bed with an injured back. We prayed for you guys, and worship team, let's continue to pray for these guys and the others in our team we have been covering in prayer. I know that Aiden's back is REALLY sore and off the charts according to the chiropractor. His wife took the brunt more in her neck, which is also REALLY sore. Glad that you guys are on the road to recovery. Haven't heard from Matt yet this week, but let's please continue to pray for him.
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You guys did great being without much of our team. Jonas, my son, did an outstanding job filling in on acoustic guitar. I am so proud of him (sniffle, sniffle). Even for being a skeleton crew, we still pulled off being done with both sound check and practice by around 9:30 am. Awesome job, guys! And guess what, we're gonna need to shoot for that again this week as we are having an omelet feed from around 8:30am until 10:00am, and I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't mind having devotions after we practice at 9:30am with one of Jerry's omelets on a plate in front of me. =) So please, if possible, let's let's be at the church as promptly by 8:00am as possible.
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Oh yeah...check it out. God has blessed us so much as a worship team, that we are sending smaller worship teams from our church to Matt Payne's church in the Portland/Beaverton area on November 9th and 16th, and possibly for a couple of more Sundays in December as their worship pastor, Jenni Clayville, will be on maternity leave. I don't know if you remember, but this is the church that we have been supporting in their new(er) church plant...we sent cards to them a few weeks ago. I love how our church is so about THE Church, big C. In other words, we're not so focused on who we are, but rather, are concerned about helping other churches that really need it. I know that this has been a dream of both Brett's and mine; To BLESS other churches by sending worship teams out. Did you know that we literally have 4, well actually 5 guys that can lead worship and at least 2 complete full teams?!? Thank you Jesus! So as you open the new REVISED Oct-Nov2008 schedule, please look it over to make sure it works, especially on those two Sundays. I have talked to most of you who are involved in this about it.
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Thank you guys again and again for your ministry. As always, I look forward to meeting at Jesus' feet with you this Sunday, and leading others to His feet as well. Much love to all of you.
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Grace and peace,

Christian

THOUGHTS ON WORSHIP

Hello my friends!
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As I was talking to a few friends of mine from Whipple Creek Church, they said that they felt like the heavens were opened up during the time of worship this last Sunday. Did you feel that way? I felt a tremendous amount of freedom in worship as I played guitar and sang (maybe too much freedom as Brett was trying to get my attention for offering when my eyes were closed) from my heart. Isn't it neat to be so inundated by the Holy Spirit that everything else in this world just fades away. I love it! What a sweet, sweet time of worship we had...and the theme of gratefulness tied in so well with the message. Thank you guys so much for doing this with me week in and week out. You guys are awesome!
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Couple of things I'd like to go over:
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(1) For the sake of aesthetics, I think I am going to ask that we limit drink containers that we have on stage with us to water bottles only. I have heard some comments that it may be a distraction to have all of our different colored coffee cups (mine included) and drink cups up on stage. I just don't want to take the chance of being a distraction during our time of worship. It is fine to have our coffee cups and drink cups during practice, but then changing over to water bottles (same brand...provided by Whipple) when the service starts. I think that we also need to try to be sensitive and tactful as to when to take a drink (I know that we need to for our vocals and such, but just trying to go as long as we can without would be sweet). Any comments, thoughts on this?
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(2) For the sake of practice going smoothly and finishing by 10:00 am promptly for our pre-service prayer time, I would like to again remind us to be at the church by 8:00 am if possible. I know that we all run a little late at times. I'm just trying to get as much time in on practice and as little time as possible on sound checking and such. I will also watch our time for devotions to keep us on schedule. We did pretty well this last week, but the weeks previous we were running pretty late. Also, I know that all of our opinions about sound, tone, volume, etc., are all valid and important, and you all know that I don't like to be some weird "iron fisted" leader, but I would like to set a precedent of giving the WORSHIP LEADER and the SOUND TECHNICIAN the freedom to make a quick decision for the sake of time with all other worship team members supporting decisions made by these two people. Believe me when I say that we are all a TEAM and should all have creative license to play or sing what is fitting and appropriate for any particular song. I really believe that we all just need to serve with humility, and not arguing, for the sake of unity in spirit as well as having the big picture in mind...our decisions can and do effect not only ourselves, but other team members and the entire congregation. Along with this I would like it if we DID NOT CHANGE any settings between practice and the service, unless the WORSHIP LEADER approves of it. If there is a discrepancy or disagreement from a member of the worship team as to what decision the WORSHIP LEADER or SOUND TECHNICIAN makes, I would appreciate compliance to these requests for the practice and service that Sunday morning, and then we can have a discussion about the disagreement after the service. Thank you guys so much. You know that I hate to "make a bunch of rules" for us to follow, but I really am taking into consideration everyone involved in the worship service if I ask for something particular. I am also trying to build in this precedent for the worship leader coming after me so that there is no confusion on who has the final word on such things. Any thoughts or dialogue on this? I want you all to know that I VALUE ALL OF YOUR OPINIONS and take them all into careful consideration.
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I love you all very much. Please pray for Bill Christina as he wasn't feeling well last week. Let's also remember the other prayer requests from last Sunday. If you have any new prayer requests, please let me know so I can pass them along.
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Blessings,

Christian