To start this week off I thought I would post a video of a song I wrote a long time ago but just dusted it off again. I was going through an old journal and found this little gem.

If you have any interest to play this song I've posted the chord chart and mp3 file here.

hope you enjoy

You may think from the title of this post I have figured out a new diet that will help you lose weight. That’s not it! This is the 4th thing I listed in my post "5 things that will hold you back". When I say, "lose the weight,” I don't mean in a literal sense, but in a hypothetical sense where the wrong people can add weight to your life and keep you from moving forward.

Here are a couple verses that can give us some insight of what the Bible has to say about this:

Each year I have the privilege to attend the national worship leader conference in Leewood KS. I am lucky because it’s only about a 15 min drive from my home so I get to go home each night and sleep in my own bed! This is usually the only worship-focused conference I am able to attend all year so I usually stock up on resources as much as I can to last me through the year. This year I stocked up on some great books and DVDs that I am excited to get to. I want to list them here in case any of you are interested in hearing about what I thought of these. If you see any that interest you let me know and I’ll be sure to do a review/reaction to it.  Here is the treasure trove I got this year. I will say that I actually had quite a few of these books already either on my ipad or on my bookshelf but am committed to reading them this year. Here they are: 

This past week as you may have seen from my instagram photos and tweets, I went to the National Worship Leaders Conference. I received so much valuable information and was able to just worship without having to worry about the videos not working, the mics squealing or forgetting the lyrics. It was so refreshing for me and I’m back and ready to hit the ground running!

 One of the most impactful times for me this last week was during a night of worship as One Sonic Society was leading us. The lead singer began to talk about his bout with anxiety and fear.

The third thing I listed in “5 things that will hold you back” is personal plateau. This can happen out of fatigue or burnout. The problem with this is that when we hit this plateau we are no longer able to lead people any further than that point. If the people you lead stop growing they will seek something or someone who will help them grow.

Leadership is an always-moving train and when you jump off at a certain point you are left behind. The train keeps going and you stay put.

One of the first things I heard about leadership is “you can’t lead people somewhere you have never been”. At first I didn’t agree with this statement. I thought “couldn’t a leader take people farther than themselves just by encouragement and motivation? Or maybe get to a higher place with them, like at the same time?” I quickly realized that this does not work. What helped me understand this idea was this analogy:

If you go to the bookstore you can find literally thousands of books on leadership. Even if you narrow it down to “Christian” leadership there are an overwhelming number of resources that tell you just what you need to know to be a good leader. I have many of these books and resources myself, and there is value to them. I started reading 1Timothy in my devotions recently and found a treasure trove of leadership teaching, straight from one of the founding “Pastors”, Paul.

This is the final addition to the post "5 things that wil hold you back" 

Lost motivation, is there such a thing?

As I sit writing this next post about motivation, I ironically have none. If you are a follower of my blog you will know that it’s been a while since my last post. I don’t know why but for a little while I feel like I lost all motivation for keeping up with my writing and blogging…. Or did I?

This is another post spurred from the post 5 things that will hold you back. The first one we dug into was fear and we learned we have the power to defeat any fear that we have. The next obstacle to growth is laziness.

Laziness is a huge killer of spiritual growth. The reason is, we reach a point in our spiritual life that we feel comfortable with and we decide to just stay there, to go any further would require a good amount of energy and we just don't have it! As leaders we need to do our best to continue our growth and overcome laziness so we can help other people push through their laziness as we help them grow.

In my last post I talked about 5 things that can hold you back. In these next few posts I want to dig a little deeper into each one of these things and figure out how we can overcome them. The first one, and probably the most common is fear.

As Worship leaders and pastors we are tasked with encouraging growth and spiritual development. As a fruit of this effort we see growth in a church, unhindered worship, momentum and excitement! So what holds us back? I have been thinking lately about better ways to encourage growth specifically in they way people worship through music. In doing that I came to find some things that hold us back as leaders from pushing and encouraging growth.

One of the questions I get the most from musicians is "What gear do you use?" So I made this video going through my electric guitar pedals. The next couple posts will be of my acoustic guitar setup and then one of all the guitars I use.

Hope you Enjoy!

Using Loops in Worship

As our resources through technology grow, we have the opportunity to add some really neat elements to our worship times. One of these is using loops along with a click to add an extra layer to our sound. Loops can be used a couple different ways.

1. To fill a gap of a missing instrument

2. To add ambient/electronic sounds to the rest of the band

A loop is locked to a click track that the band is playing to so whatever music or sound is on the loop, is played and fits with what the band is playing. 

We started using loops a little over a year ago and I wanted to show you how we set up our system. If you are looking to start using loops this is one of the most simplistic ways to set it up.

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This last summer we started using a visual element in worship called “environmental projection”.  It is when you link 2 or 3 projectors together and create one large image that emits onto the entire front wall or walls of your sanctuary. You can project images, videos, and different motion background that go along with the worship set and add another element of visual worship. Here are the steps we took to implement this process and some resources that may help you get started.

For Christmas this last year I got a banjo and a mandolin! I know I’m spoiled, but that’s not what this post is about.

I have been looking for ways to incorporate “different” instruments into worship. We have our usual worship band instruments like guitars and pianos but sometimes its fun to shake things up a bit.

Last week we started our new Series "Big Rocks" which addresses the core foundations of our faith. To set the stage we added some boulders to the stage to represent the "rocks" of our faith. To spice things up a little we created a cool background of paper plates and cups to the back wall. Then we shot some led lights at them that change colors on their own creating a really cool effect. It was funny, on Sunday morning people were getting really close to the stage to try to figure out what those things on the back wall were! It turned out really cool and the whole thing cost less than 50 bucks!

Stage Design- Easter Series- Shedding the Grave clothes

Our new series started this Ester Sunday and will go for the next 7 weeks. Each new series the stage design team "brands" the stage to go along with the theme of the series. We do our best to find the most cost effective ways to make the best stage setup possible. Here is what we did for this series.

Last summer, I attended the National Worship Leaders Conference and spent most of my workshop time in classes about "visual" worship. I am a very visual person so naturally I was just drawn that direction.

         Just this December I finally got the right team together to become a "stage design team". Basically, we "set" the stage for each sermon series and use the stage design to help drive the theme of each one. This has been an extremely helpful tool as we have continued to do it for the last 3 series. Here are some of the resources and tips we use that you may find helpful if you want to begin, or already are, changing the stage design with the sermon series.