Worship Confessional 2

Alright, so here's my account from last night at Practice (GBC high school service). First and foremost, we finally had the entire band back together! We have been missing a couple of guys over the summer and it is definitely good to have everyone back.

Our current Practice team:
Me - acoustic/vocals,
Kaylyn Van Dunk - BGV,
Katy Draper - BGV,
Skylar Hagler - electric,
Doug Hedstrom - bass,
Jason Morgan - keys,
Jacob Hines - drums,
Courtney Kasper - media
Roman Walley - FOH

I have to say that these guys (and gals) absolutely rocked the house. I mean, it was by far the best we have played since I started working with this group. The set list for the night consisted of My Savior Lives (New Life Worship), Salvation is Here (Hillsong United), Shine (Matt Redman), Part of Your Story (Todd Wright), and we finished up after the message with I Give You My Heart (Reuben Morgan, Hillsong). The original plan also included Stand in Awe (Jeremey Riddle) but we had to cut it do to time.

Throughout the night, I think that the crowd really responded well. We're in kind of a growing time since we lost some of our older students and gained quite a few new ones. With new faces comes new challenges; the biggest of which would be teaching students about worship.

This is something God has laid on my heart over the past few months and I feel as a worship pastor that it is my duty to not only lead worship, but to teach about it as well. Not just to be singing, but truly surrendering our hearts and lives to Christ and being overtaken by his spirit. Not about what we get out of it, but the gift that we offer to Him. Worship is so not about us. I heard someone describe it in a way that I've never really thought of and it got me thinking. They said that worship is kinda like coming home. No matter how far away you may get, there is nothing better than running home and seeing your Father running toward you with open arms. Who knows, maybe one day I'll even write a book about this. Or, more than likely, I'll just talk about writing a book and not ever do it.

Our rehearsal time was cut short due to students arriving early, so we didn't get a chance to finish running the songs. Even so, the songs we didn't get to run were as good if not better than those we did. It's really exciting to get to the place where individual musicians can come together and really be a band. We have cues and can communicate effectively without words, we know arrangements and can change them up at any time, and we can nail songs with little rehearsal time. Now I'm not trying to brag about this, I'm just saying God has gifted these guys and when they use their gifts for the right reasons, many, many blessings follow.

I have now been leading worship at Practice for over 1.5 years and it just keeps getting better. Seriously, I have to remind myself that this is my job! I actually get paid to do stuff I love!

And life is fantastic.

Ike is a comin'. Grab your shotgun and head for the hills.

-Peace