Let it Be

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A cop out...

I know it's kind of a cop out to post someone else's work after having not blogged for forever and 21 days... but... this is amazing...

from http://elevation-worship.com/blog/



Aug 26|Front-Footed Worship

Someone recently talked to me about the importance of being “front-footed” in how we lead worship. That when we lead, we should have a posture of being ready to charge the stage with a contagious anticipation that shows that we are ready to meet with God. The way that we worship and lead should communicate to our church that we will never get this moment back, so let’s make the most of every second as we engage with the our holy and mighty God.

This begs the question – does our worship of Jesus communicate a casual boredom with God? Have we become used to who He is or what He has done for us? Or does our worship overflow with the excitement of offering our lives and our love to the Savior who gave everything for us? How can we help our people continually have a heart of wonder and gratitude for the love of Christ demonstrated on the cross?

Worship leaders, let’s seek to teach our church to take hold of every moment because we aren’t just talking about a 20 minute set of songs. It is an encounter with the living God.

Wade

Again...

Here we are again... back on the blog and not sure what I want to post about... I have some "deep theological" concepts that I want to share, but my Bible is at the church and I am at the Depot. So you will just have to wait in eager anticipation and wonder.

We debut'd? debutted? We introduced our people to "God of this City" last week... That went really well... It's such a powerful song. The band is really loving it and so that helps to add energy to it when we are leading, cool stuff...

Heath and I redid the stage set for the new series we are starting - Practical Atheist. Also, thanks to a few volunteers we had three walls of our lobby repainted to match the color scheme of the series and it looks awesome. I'm really pumped about this series... I think it's going to hit a lot of people pretty hard which is both good and bad. It's going to be powerful.

Last week we were under 200 for the first time in about a month and a half... It was wierd, but I heard numerous stories that it was like that for many churches.

Tomorrow we have our first ever wedding at IgniteChurch.tv! Congratulations Shannon and Maddie! It's pretty crazy...

Anywho... gotta get back to work soon... yeeaaahhh........................

Set list for this coming week:

Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
Glorious Day - Arranged by Jeff Johnson
God of this City - BlueTree
Amazing Grace - Arranged by Chris Tomlin

Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done!

Growing old...

So, a lot has happened as of late that has made me realize and has made reality set in on the fact that I am getting older... For starters... I'm Married! What the heck?! That's so weird and awesome! Not only am I married, but I am a full year into my marriage. Crazy!

A couple weeks ago the Casey's, R.I.P., moved away from Joplin. This was a huge deal because Lauren and I were closer to them than any other couple in Joplin. They were the first people that we were really close to that moved away because of a job... :-( We miss them dearly and await the day they return to visit!

After returning from a men's trip to Colorado I realized that I was looking forward to getting back to life - aside from the two shifts that I have now cut down to at Home Depot. The rest of my time will be spent either working at the church (which will one day be my full time job) or with the afore mentioned wife. It's odd to think that I am already mostly in the position which I will hold for many years - a full time vocational pastor. No only this, but I will not be returning to school in the fall.

Today I put Lauren's MO license plates on her jeep... We are now officially official residents of Webb City I believe. We both have MO licenses and plates. I witnessed a car making a U-turn today and my mind raced back to four years ago. When the afore mentioned Josh Casey and I prowled the streets of Joplin as Freshmen at OCC. I thought about the many, many (many) U-turns that we made as we were learning the town of Joplin. As I mentioned to Lauren earlier, I never even imagined back in those days that I would one day be a resident of this town. And yet, now my heart breaks for this town and the people that live here. I so badly want to see them reached and to show them the love of Christ.

I don't know... I guess growing up isn't so bad... I will not miss school at all. I am certainly not looking forward to the day that another dear friend must move away, or myself and Lauren move. But I guess it happens to all of us, this growing old thing. It's just a question as to whether we accept it and grow with it, or refuse to grow and stay stuck in the past.

A long long time ago

in a land far away there was once a boy who updated his blog.

So, here we are... a month and a half later... my band rocks as much as they always have! We are really growing as a band which is really cool to see! I'm pretty sure that we could go a week w/out practice (excluding the opener) and still be able to refresh on Sunday and have an absolutely rocking worship set... That fact is really exciting!

On Thursday I got back from a mens trip to Colorado. It was a pretty awesome trip. 2 parts that stunk about it 1) It was my first time sleeping away from Lauren since we got married, that stunk! 2) I don't really have two things that stunk about it. I just thought it would be better to have 2...

God truly moved in the hearts of some of our men while we were out there... It's SO exciting to see that we finally have men who are ready to take the vision of our church and make it their own. To be honest, the vision that I so recently grasped myself. I love seeing in people the same excitement that I have about our vision!

God is going to continue to do amazing things through IgniteChurch.tv, I just can't wait to see what!

Set list for this week...
One by U2
Our God is Love by Lee McDerment
Salvation's Chorus by Todd Fields
Jesus Paid it All arranged by Kristian Stanfill
Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle

Gonna be a rockin week!

Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city!

Let there be light!... or not...?!

Last Sunday we launched our second service at 9am!! It was WAY exciting for us and the life of the church!! Didn't go QUITE as planned though...

Lauren and I were driving up and I notice the first stop light by the church is out.. then I notice the stop light closest to the church is out... then I notice the marquee in our church parking lot is out... then i freak out... Thank God for my wife!! She helped calm me down from where I was!! So, what happened? We had a candle lit service!! It actually went REALLY well!! It was great!! We had 56 people there and a number of new people!! Most of whom said they would be back next week!!

10am rolls around... no power... 10:10am no power... a few of us were standing outside... 10:15am "Heath!! We have power!!!" I couldn't be more proud of our volunteers!! EVERYTHING was running as it should be literally by 10:20... If someone were to walk into our church at 10:20 they wouldn't have EVER known that we didn't have power until 5 minutes ago... Our volunteers rock!! 10:30am service went off w/out a hitch! It was awesome!! we ended up totaling 208 people on Sunday morning!

Tuesday my band was given the opportunity to lead worship in chapel at OCC... I couldn't be more proud of the band!! They rocked!!! I am so proud of how far we have come in the last few months and how we are all starting to come together... best compliment I heard was "You could tell you guys played together a lot!" That's SO exciting to hear!!

So... Join us Sunday at IgniteChurch.tv, 7th and Virginia, Joplin. Wk 2 of Supernatural "Holy Spirit"... 9am and 10:30am take your pick!!

Set list....
Not Meant To Be - Theory of a Deadman
Salvation is Here - Hillsong
Love is Here - Tenth Avenue North
Glorious Day - Jeff Johnson Arrangement
Came to My Rescue - Hillsong


Greater things are yet to come... Greater things are still to be done in this city!