Back from Bahamas

I lost my luggage! Out of all the people flying on my place, guess whose luggage they lost? Mine. Yes, that's right I am back from our Mission Trip To Bahamas. It was no vacation at all. We worked every day from early morning till 2am setting up our Venue, doing our Concert, and then tearing down 50,000 dollars worth of equipment and then packing it back up in a u-haul truck. I got to hang out with 11 other high schoolers that are some of the coolest most talented kids I have ever met. Our mission was to help out a ministry known as Karazim. We were the main feature band for the WORSHIP WEEK CONFERENCE.

Highlights:

- Going to the Beach Once
- Eating Conch
- Watching Kevin (homeless) get long term help
- Dancing during Behemian worship services
- Seeing Lizards everywhere
- Riding "Discovery" Cruise (just kidding, never ride this boat)
- Leading Worship Every Night
- Riding home alone on bunch of planes
- Losing my luggage

Alright, so that is my update. I hate looking back in life, as you can tell by my short post. I always want to be looking forward to the next thing God has in store so much so that I have no time to blog about what has been done in the past. I'm a full steam ahead type guy I guess, but it is also good to take time and remember the faithfulness of the Lord. He once again was faithful on this trip to reveal himself to me through a man named Raul. More about Raul is to come...

Connecting With Your Audience in ......... 3 minutes and 43 seconds

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Right now I am in my office as I just escaped a Concert that is going on right now at our Church. I will not mention the name of the band as some of you might know them and I don't want to give them a bad name as I really believe they have sincere hearts. But that's just it. If we allowed every sincere heart sing in church, or in this case perform all accross America, America would blow up! Just because you think you can sing only means that your mom wasn't honest with you growing up. You can't so please don't get into the music business.

After watching 40 plus people get up and leave our church, plus one old man left givng the boo! sign as he headed toward the doors, I just sat there and thought:

IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE!

For all you Worship Leaders or Up and Coming Performing Arts people. Listen up! You can sing like Celion Dion, but if you do not connect with the people you are trying to minister too, you have nothing! Stop using the audience as a way to get off on yourself. You are there to cater to the audience. The audience is your employer (so to speak) so you do what they want, when they want it, how they want it. I am so tired of Christian Musicians thinking they have a little bit of talent, and can sing How Great Is Our God and we just let them on stage.

A worship leader, and or performer MUST MUST MUST Connect with Your Audience!

Who's our audience?

Our first audience is God Himself. We must connect with Him or else our music is just that, and our message comes accross phony. Plus, if we really believe in the power of the Holy Spirit using our Connection with Him to Connect with the hearts of others than it is even more important to make sure we are connecting with God while we lead.

Next...

We must also connect with our fellow worshipers. A worship LEADER, must do exactly that LEAD!!!!! Who are you leading? PEOPLE!!!!!! "Oh no, I don't care what people think of me, I'm just worshiping God right now." If I had a penny for every time I heard that I would be Bill Gates. If you are on stage during a worship service you are a serregate Moses, or Joshua or Paul. You are leading God's people somewhere. Stop paralyzing yourself in your own false humility, and rise up and LEAD!

How do you lead?

With CONFIDENT HUMILY! The very same way you like to be led. No body likes a cocky leader, but no one also likes a passive wimp. The reason men don't come to church today is because it's hard to worship a brown hair, tea sipping, robe wearing, Galilean whom you think you could actually beat up. Jesus Christ is not a wimp! He's a Savior, a warrior, a champion, a King. Lead your people with confidence, and humility to that Jesus, not the hippy Jesus.

Okay....

Im done venting. I litterally wrote this in 3 minutes and 43 seconds, the very same amount of time we have to CONNECT WITH OUR AUDIENCE.
So, do me a favor... If you are a worship leader or in the performing arts thing. Go ahead and print this off and read it to your people. You can not stress the importance of CONNECTING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE.

Okay? Now Go and LEAD!!!!!!!!!

3 Cool New Things

Hey All,

I just got back from Chicago for a freind's wedding at (get this) Narnia Estates. It was exactly like it sounds.... "Enchanted". I think I saw Aslan...

Anywho, it is good to be back in the office blogging. I am still getting use to the fact that I actually have a blog. But this blog will make it all worth it when you find out about these 3 Cool New Things:

1. Red Box



In Port Huron, we have our "Red Box" in our Kroger grocery store. I am not kidding when I say that there is no start up costs and each and every DVD you rent is only 1 dollar. Plus the first one is free if you put in this code: JC10LK

Go check it out... oh and your welcome!!


2. V-necks


Yes that's right. V-necks are coming back in. I just went to Forever 21 and bought my first one. It's grey and if you are lucky you may see me sporting it soon. I never thought I would own one of these dangerously low beuties, but I am a v-neck convert. Go get yours and we will sport them together. (My friends and I are touring in Bahamas for a worship conference in a couple weeks and guess what we all bought and are wearing?)


3. Daniel Renstrom "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder"


I found this new artist out through a friend and now I can't get enough of this one old hymn that he sings. It's called, "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder". Go to itunes and do yourself a favor and buy the whole CD. It only 6 dollars. I love it! I very rarely love a CD, but I love the combination of artistic ability with crazy weighted theological content. The Blog is over, so go buy it now!