Here are some updates to my goals I had set out at the beginning of the year

1. Restart Freedom and Hymn Sings

I have always wanted to use Freedom and our Hymn Sings to unite the Church.  (Capital “C” is used when I am referring to the whole body of Christ)  I am not only planning to have two of each but my goal is to get some other churches involved in these events.

Still working on this…I haven’t scheduled any yet but I am hoping to have Freedom in May.

2. Begin Blogging Again

The goal of this website has always been to encourage and equip worship leaders and the Church.  This has not always been the case and it has also been almost 8 months since I last blogged.  Consistency and quality of posts is what I am shooting for.

FAIL!!!!!

3. Year Long Hymn Project

I believe the hymns hold some great theology and truths that need not be lost by the next generation.  So each month starting in February thru November we will be learning one hymn each month to the point that as a church we could sing it without words on the screen.  Why?  So that the truths of Christ would dwell richly in our hearts.  I’m not sure what hymns we are going to do yet, still working on that.  We will also record the hymns in the arrangements we will play them in church and put it on a CD.  If you have any suggestions for hymns to include in this project comment below of e-mail me.

We started this in February with Come Thou Fount and March will be Nothing but the Blood.  I have received a lot of great feed back about this project.  Because of Easter we probably won’t have time to really bear down and get the songs recorded until May or June.

4. Finish The Gift of Prophesy, Read the Way of the Wild Heart, Begin to tackle Bible Doctrine by Jeff Purswell.

For me to be a more effective worship leader and be able to help advance the Kingdom of God I need a better grasp on much of the theology of the christian faith.  I have realized because of the family I grew up in I have a strong grasp of many of the core things I believe but really can’t defend them very well.  I want this to change in 2010.  Reading The Way of the Wild Heart is a bit personal…my Mom gave it to me for Christmas.  (It must be said that I am a slow reader so this is a faith based goal)

EPIC FAIL!!!!!

5. Monthly worship Podcast

My brother-in-law Brian and I are going to start recording a monthly podcast to encourage and equip worship leaders and the Church with topic discussion, interviews, song reviews, guests and also some randomness.

Brian and I hosted our first, listen here, in February.  Topic was why a worship band, interview was with Jon Payne, Pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Gilbert, new song review was You Alone Can Rescue by Matt Redman.  I’m really looking forward to the next few months of podcasts.  Potential content: Topics “The Theology of Woah!!”, Interview with a worship leader and two of the rappers on his worship team.

6. Create at least one more opportunity for the Orchestra to play

Last year our orchestra for Easter was 13 strong, this year it looks as if we will even have more.  One bummer has always been that there has really only been one opportunity each year for them to play.  So I plan to find at least one more opportunity for the orchestra to play at church.

I need to get through Easter first:)

7. Record a Live CD

I get, on a consistent basis, people asking for a CD of us playing the worship songs we do on Sunday mornings.  So at some point this year I’ll gather our church, probably on a Sunday right after church, and record the CD.

No plans yet but I don’t expect to do this until later in the year.

8. Help grow our worship leaders lunch

Once a month I get together for with four other worship leaders from the Valley, Jon Payne and Jason Hansen from Sovereign Grace in Gilbert, Aaron Bower from East Valley Bible Church in Gilbert and Alden Powers from Roosevelt Community Church in Phoenix.  It is always a very encouraging time and Jon Payne and myself have discussed a desire to see this group grow.  We both desire to help encourage and challenge other worship leaders.

Austin Martin from Chandler Christian joined us for our Worship Leaders Lunch in February.

9. Weigh 220lbs by December

I have struggled with my weight for all of my adult life over the last two months I have suffered with intense back pain and I have also been sick twice for more than a week.  These circumstances may not be caused by my weight but it sure isn’t helping.  I currently weigh 270 so this will put me at a pace of little less than 5 lbs per month, a manageable goal.

I have been bouncing around the mid 260’s the last month or so.  Physical Therapy has been going good but my back has still been bothering me too much to work out at a high intensity to accelerate my weight loss but I’ll get there soon.

10. Go back to School

I need to do this for myself, life forced my to put my education on hold six years ago so it’s about time to pick it back up.

Is it bad that I am writing this post in my Psychology 101 class?  I am back at school and enrolled in two classes, PSY 101 and Music Theory.  I am really enjoying Music Theory it’s actually changing the way that I am thinking through my chord charts.  And when I think about a key I am actually thinking about how many sharps or flats it has.

Here it is the first ever Freedom Podcast.  Hope you enjoy it.

Interview with Jon Payne pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Gilbert, AZ.

New Song review You Alone Can Rescue by Matt Redman

At my church we are in a series that is taking us bit by bit through the Apostles Creed.  One of the goals for the church is that we would memorize the Creed.  So I have decided to write a song to help with the memorization of it.  This is not supposed to be the next great worship anthem, it’s simply a song to help us memorize the Apostles Creed.  I’ve already got it memorized, challenge me to recite it the next time you see me.

I’m going to post at each major stage of the recording process so you can see how a recording comes together.  Here is the first stage: acoustic guitar and lead vocals with no effects.  Enjoy and let me know what you think.

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As I sat in my home watching the ball drop, ringing in a new decade while my wife and kids slept I was thinking about all of the new years resolutions people come up with.  The majority of resolutions center around oneself and rarely consider the advancement of the Kingdom of God.  I spent some time thinking and praying and here are some goals I have set for the new year.  Some are a bit personal but also have an impact on my ministry.

1. Restart Freedom and Hymn Sings

I have always wanted to use Freedom and our Hymn Sings to unite the Church.  (Capital “C” is used when I am referring to the whole body of Christ)  I am not only planning to have two of each but my goal is to get some other churches involved in these events.

2. Begin Blogging Again

The goal of this website has always been to encourage and equip worship leaders and the Church.  This has not always been the case and it has also been almost 8 months since I last blogged.  Consistency and quality of posts is what I am shooting for.

3. Year Long Hymn Project

I believe the hymns hold some great theology and truths that need not be lost by the next generation.  So each month starting in February thru November we will be learning one hymn each month to the point that as a church we could sing it without words on the screen.  Why?  So that the truths of Christ would dwell richly in our hearts.  I’m not sure what hymns we are going to do yet, still working on that.  We will also record the hymns in the arrangements we will play them in church and put it on a CD.  If you have any suggestions for hymns to include in this project comment below of e-mail me.

4. Finish The Gift of Prophesy, Read the Way of the Wild Heart, Begin to tackle Bible Doctrine by Jeff Purswell.

For me to be a more effective worship leader and be able to help advance the Kingdom of God I need a better grasp on much of the theology of the christian faith.  I have realized because of the family I grew up in I have a strong grasp of many of the core things I believe but really can’t defend them very well.  I want this to change in 2010.  Reading The Way of the Wild Heart is a bit personal…my Mom gave it to me for Christmas.  (It must be said that I am a slow reader so this is a faith based goal)

5. Monthly worship Podcast

My brother-in-law Brian and I are going to start recording a monthly podcast to encourage and equip worship leaders and the Church with topic discussion, interviews, song reviews, guests and also some randomness.

6. Create at least one more opportunity for the Orchestra to play

Last year our orchestra for Easter was 13 strong, this year it looks as if we will even have more.  One bummer has always been that there has really only been one opportunity each year for them to play.  So I plan to find at least one more opportunity for the orchestra to play at church.

7. Record a Live CD

I get, on a consistent basis, people asking for a CD of us playing the worship songs we do on Sunday mornings.  So at some point this year I’ll gather our church, probably on a Sunday right after church, and record the CD.

8. Help grow our worship leaders lunch

Once a month I get together for with four other worship leaders from the Valley, Jon Payne and Jason Hansen from Sovereign Grace in Gilbert, Aaron Bower from East Valley Bible Church in Gilbert and Alden Powers from Roosevelt Community Church in Phoenix.  It is always a very encouraging time and Jon Payne and myself have discussed a desire to see this group grow.  We both desire to help encourage and challenge other worship leaders.

9. Weigh 220lbs by December

I have struggled with my weight for all of my adult life over the last two months I have suffered with intense back pain and I have also been sick twice for more than a week.  These circumstances may not be caused by my weight but it sure isn’t helping.  I currently weigh 270 so this will put me at a pace of little less than 5 lbs per month, a manageable goal.

10. Go back to School

I need to do this for myself, life forced my to put my education on hold six years ago so it’s about time to pick it back up.

Well today I did something I haven’t yet done at Faith.  Worship today was just me and my guitar.  Interesting that today was also my two year anniversary, wow two years I’ve been doing this.  Vacation was great but it is good to be back.

We changed things up today and had all of the music up front as well as communion.  Yes, communion BEFORE the sermon and this is what my brother in law had to say about it on his twitter.

Communion before the sermon? But now my religious routine has been interrupted. Now i must focus on meaning!

As church leadership we should really find opportunities to change things up so that everything does not just become routine.  When things become routine we tend to forget why we do them.  Breaking routine forces us to think about why we do something.  In the case of communion, our church has ALWAYS done communion after the sermon, not for any particular reason we just have.  The funny thing is we’ll have some people who will have a real problem with how we did it.  Like may things in our (american) church services there are many things that we do that are cultural and not biblical.  Now I’m not saying that we are doing things that are unbiblical, it’s just that there is no mandate at how we should do our services.  No “thou shalt sing for 30 minutes, preach for 45 and have 15 minutes of announcements, also don’t forget to greet one another.”  These are all good things but they tend to be huge issues if changed.

To Church Leaders:  Changing things up is good but be prepared to explain why you did it differently and the benefit you see in changing things up.  And the big things is extend a lot of grace.

To Church Congregations:  Understand and be able to differentiate between things that are biblical and things that are cultural.  Changes from things that are biblical should not be tolerated, changes from things that are simply cultural (although you may not like it) are okay.  And again the biggest thing is to extend a lot of grace to your church leadership.

Song list from today.

Hosanna (Praise is Rising)

We Won’t Stay Silent

Everlasting God

Saviour King

Better is One Day

My Tribute

Mighty to Save

Easter 2009 was probably one of the best times I’ve had.  Working on editing the whole service but here is Happy Day Enjoy!!!

Well Sunday night I got to see one of my favorite groups.  Hillsong United was at Phoenix First Assembly.  First the annoyances… There was probably 2000-3000 more people there than would fit in the facilities, fire marshall would have freaked.  So I had to stand the whole concert which I actually would have stood most of the time anyway.  They also sold reserved seats but advertised it as a free concert on their website.  I was not very happy about that.

I just have to comment that one of the worship leaders for Phoenix First looks like Lester from Chuck, down to the long hair, tie and vest.  My blackberry wasn’t working or else I would have taken pictures.

Now to the main event.

Hillsong has yet to disappoint me, both in their live shows as well as albums.  They sing with a passion that can only come from a heart completely sold out for Jesus.  Joel Houston led most of the songs and was just fantastic.  I finally got to see Brooke Fraser in person, and I think that she is a phenomenal songwriter.  I was very excited to have her lead Hosanna because it is one of my favorite songs and I love the way she leads it.  She also shared a new song called Age to Age (i think) although I don’t find it very congregationally friendly it was awesome none the less.  Sounded a little Sarah McLachlanish.  Jad Giles led a few tunes including a new one called You Hold Me Now (its single is available on iTunes) here are the lyrics, just fabulous:

You Hold Me Now

Verse 1

On the day when I see, All that you have for me

When I see you face to face, There surrounded by your grace

All my fears swept away, In the light of your embrace

Where your love is all I need, and forever I am free

Where the streets are made of gold, in your presence healed and whole

Let the songs of heaven rise to you alone

Chorus

No weeping, No hurt or pain, No suffering

You hold me now, You hold me now

No darkness, No sick or lame, No hiding

You hold me now, You hold me now

Verse 2

In this life I will stand, through my joy and my pain

Knowing there’s a greater day, There’s a hope that never fails

Where your name is lifted high, and forever praises rise

For the glory of your name, I’m believing for the day

Where the wars and violence cease, All creation lives in peace

Let the songs of heaven rise to you alone

Bridge

For eternity all my heart will give, All the glory to your name