2008 Ministry Goals Revisited
Well here I go again. I’m going to attempt to be transparent without making too many excuses. Here were my projected goals for 2008 concerning the Rock Church Music Ministry:
Music Ministry Goals for 2008
Build A Stronger Team/ Develop More Depth in Our Worship Services
-Get CD’s for new songs – sometimes (mostly for special occasions)
-CD with me singing parts for choir members – NO
-CD with chord charts for band members – Chord charts yes, CD sometimes (see above)
-Personally inspecting leaders’ lives – Not really…
-Via weekly or bi-weekly e-mails – ….
-Weekend dinner dates with couples or going out for coffee/hanging out with some of the single men (appoint Amanda as the leader over the single women and as a stronger leader in general) – sort of
-Spend more time rehearsing with EVERYBODY together – YES!
-Have a worship practice – not nearly as often as I would have liked
YOUTH: Sundays around 3:30pm or 4:00pm (CD with new songs to them by previous Wednesday) – ended up being Sundays, and then Mondays and Tuesdays
RCWT: Thursdays at 7:00 with everybody after vocal run through with frontline at 6:30 (CD with new songs to them by previous Sunday) – YES!
Being More Punctual
-Being early and prepared for rehearsal – Thursdays YES, Sundays about 75% of the time
-Start on time – YES! (Except the dreaded Sunday morning sound checks)
Musical Goals
-Vocalists doing Singing Success – er…. no. That’s my bad.
Assignment for Everybody
-Have everybody e-mail me explaining in what areas they would like to see themselves improve in both RCWT and personally in 2008… BE SPECIFIC! – Yes but I did a horrible job of following up/responding to them.
Develop Systems
-Phone Tree – YES, but Implementation died out about halfway through the year
-Additional worship leaders when I’m not there or if I want to take a week “off” – No, but 2009 is looking very promising…
So there you have it. I pretty much sucked at accomplishing my goals. But why then did 2008 seem so successful? Why do I not feel like a failure until I look at these goals? Why does it seem like we are stronger than we’ve ever been? Did I make unrealistic or unnecessary goals?
I’d honestly like to know your thoughts.
I have much hope for the RCMM in 2009. And I truly believe this year is going to be the year that things start to blow up! And I hope that it’s because I begin to get out of the way, stop DOING and allow God to raise up others to fulfill their calling as worship leaders, musicians, singers, production directors, media coordinators, and lighting and sound engineers. Lord, use me to empower others.
Favorite quote of the week: ”God really can’t use us if we won’t [be used]” – Jaron Dean
The Best: Part 2
This is a continuation of the previous blog I wrote about striving to be the “best” praise and worship team.
I just read a blog that a guy wrote about going to a Hillsong United concert. United is currently up there with being considered one of the best our there.
What best-like qualities do you take out of it?
Here’s mine:
-All of the energy, lights, media, enthusiasm, hype you’d expect at a rock concert with the attitude and focus towards God. – Appropriate for the type of demographic we’re trying to reach.
The Dangerous Act of Worship
I don’t want to curse my chances of finishing this book by blogging about it mid-read… but it’s been too good to wait.
As I grow more and more as a worshiper and get more revelation of what true worship really is… I begin to understand how little it has to do with me.
When I use to hear people tell me to “make worship your life,” I thought that meant that I needed to be singing songs about God every chance I had. Not the case. Don’t get me wrong, music is a part of worship and me being the “Worship Paster” at The Rock DOES mean that I need to make sure I know how to get into God’s presence via music fairly efficiently and on a regular basis.
But what I’ve come to learn more-so is that worship IS the life. We are created as worshipers and do it naturally quite well. Here are a few good examples.
Worship is how we live our lives. What consumes us. What is always on our minds. And there is no worship without selflessness, justice and loving your neighbor.
Worship has never been about us, how it makes US feel or what WE get out of it. It’s about praising God with reckless abandon. It’s about the least of these finding God and meeting Him through us.
What will it take to put God on the top of our list?
The Best
Last night before KYC, Justin gathered all of the people on the music team around the front of the stage for a “word.”
He challenged us as musicians, as worshipers and as a team saying, “This is probably one of the most talented bands out there… but that’s not good enough. You guys could show up every week and jam out and sound great. But I think that you guys have the potential to be the best praise and worship team ever.”
Quite a challenge. But I agree. This is a challenge that I feel like we only want to rise to on special occasions. I think we need to strive towards it every day! Living a life of worship and constantly growing in our craft and musicianship.
So this presents a question. What do YOU think the best praise and worship team looks like?
Back…
Tif and I are BACK from SO-CAL. We had a great time. We wore ourselves out… but at the same time I’m completely refreshed and ready to get back into the swing of things! I miss all of our friends. I miss my scooter. I miss our church. I love the Quad Cities and that God has called us here to do work!
Being on vacation and attending another church for a Sunday has really opened my eyes to what is going on in our nation and the whole “one church/prayer” thing. We are indeed one church and I really think we need to recognize that more often and stop competing with denominations and how other people do things. Not that The Rock in particularly does that. But sometimes as the body of Christ I feel like we get distracted from the big picture.
So-Cal was awesome. We stayed with Adam and Michelle Soliz. Adam is Stu’s (one of the drummers at The Rock) oldest son. He leads worship at the aforementioned church and let me play guitar on Sunday. It was fun. They live about 30 minutes from Los’s old church in Riverside, CA and about an hour from LA (which you will get more pics of later).
Anyway, now Tif and I are laying around our recovering air-conditioned house trying to re-adjust to midwest time. Cali is two hours behind us (it’s 2:16am here, which means it’s 12:16 am there). I think I’m starting to get tired. So I’ll see ya’ll tomorrow!
PS – Amanda, Josiah, Kyle, Luke, Kris, Jace, John, Sherita, singers, JMann and production team and anyone else I’m forgetting who helped make the music portion of worship go so well this past week, I just want to say thank you for reminding me how awesome you all are. I’ve heard nothing but good about Sunday and both Wednesdays. You guys rock! Let’s keep worshiping with everything we have!
G’Night!
Vacay!
Not to copy any of my colleague’s blog post ideas… but tomorrow, my wife and I will be leaving to go spend some time here…
Do a little bit of this…
Stay with these fine people (Adam & Michelle Soliz)…
And get the opportunity to worship with these people
California, here we come! It’s gonna be a great time. And I will officially be twitter and blog silent for the next week. I’m going to miss the team and
church but I will come back refreshed and ready to rock!
See you on the flip…
-Aus
Speak…
It’s 12:43 am. I know I shouldn’t be up this late on a Saturday night. But I’m just sick and tired of feeling so mediocre. I’m tired of chasing churches instead of chasing God. The whole “keeping up with the Joneses” so to speak. I just feel like I’m constantly like “whose blog do I need to read next?” “what new book is the next person reading?” and the frustration goes on.
This is a sort of holy discontentment and I need some answers.
I don’t know what needs to change in my ministry, but I don’t feel like we’re on the right path. I want to develop leaders, reproduce worshipers, set people on fire for the things of God, give people an eternal purpose in this temporary life.
RIVERS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS!!! FLOODS OF JUSTICE!!!
Where is that? Who am I living for anyway? What purpose do I wake up for each day?
And why do I go into EVERY staff meeting hoping that I didn’t make any of the people that sit around the table mad? Hoping that I lived up to their expectations?
Please pray for me.
I feel like I’m trying to light a wet fuse that leads to an atomic Godbomb. It sucks.
Leady
Tonight’s leadership was very leady indeed. It was just the kick in the butt that I needed after the way I felt after today’s service. Which was quite cranky to pinpoint it. Something today about the music just didn’t work. If you know what it was, please let me know.
Anyway, Justin taught tonight on success… and the dangers of it. Which I’m not entirely sure was the problem with today’s worship session (praise session, for those of you who think that I’m talking about something other than music). But yes, being too comfortable with our past success definitely had at least SOMETHING to do with today’s weirdness.
Here’s the bottom line. Summer’s coming. And when the warm weather kicks in, certain people automatically become more “care free” and less concerned with the things of the ministry. As the leader of the music at Rock Church of the Quad Cities, I need to make sure that I don’t become one of those people. In fact, I need to make sure that I’m growing even MORE to compensate for any lack of enthusiasm that may come splashing my way.
We’re changing our world. There’s no time to waste!
Songwriting…
Ok so here’s the thing. There comes a time in your songwriting journey when you need to stop, turn around and take “inventory” of the songs you’ve written up to that point. So I’m going to take the next month or so and do just that.
When I say inventory, I mean I’m going to look at not only the quantity but the quality of the songs that we currently sing in either the main church service, but also KYC. I’ve recently began a stage of enlightenment through these Hillsong DVD’s and CD’s (see below post). It has come to my attention that people do, indeed, shape their doctrine through songs that they sing and like. Whether biblically sound or not. They then, however later down the road it may be, find themselves reading scripture (which is to say the least, MORE doctrinally sound than ANY song will ever be) and actually FIND the truth as it relates to a certain song they’ve been singing for years.
So needless to say, I certainly want the songs that have my name attached to them to be 100% truth. And not only that, but they leave NO space for misinterpretation.
The ultimate goal for the future is for all songs to be inspired and/or sifted through the word before they ever hit the stage.
Like I’ve said before, all songs written under the umbrella of Rock Church should fall under one of these three categories:
1. Scripture Songs – scripture with a catchy melody woven into it. These songs help the congregation memorize scripture as they leave the church service humming and singing the melody all week long.
2. Jesus Songs – songs that focus on the FINISHED work of Jesus.
3. Now Songs – songs that come from the overflow of what God is speaking to the body.
Finally…
Righto mate!
So finally after about a month and a half of waiting, I’ve received my DVD’s and CD’s that I ordered from last year’s Hillsong conference. After weeks of debating with God, myself and a few other staff members, I decided that it would be a bit more cost effective to just buy the DVD’s from the worship sessions rather than spend mine and the church’s money to spend a week down under.
I saw that they had arrived when I came in this morning for sound check. And after listening to just half of the songwriter’s session with Joel Houston and Israel Houghton, I’ve already been inspired and challenged.
It’s so vital in ministry to keep “fresh” material in front of me to keep me
growing and evolving into the best that God has for not only me, but for the church as well.
More to come…
I don’t want to curse my chances of finishing this book by blogging about it mid-read… but it’s been too good to wait.
Tif and I are BACK from SO-CAL. We had a great time. We wore ourselves out… but at the same time I’m completely refreshed and ready to get back into the swing of things! I miss all of our friends. I miss my scooter. I miss our church. I love the Quad Cities and that God has called us here to do work!
It’s 12:43 am. I know I shouldn’t be up this late on a Saturday night. But I’m just sick and tired of feeling so mediocre. I’m tired of chasing churches instead of chasing God. The whole “keeping up with the Joneses” so to speak. I just feel like I’m constantly like “whose blog do I need to read next?” “what new book is the next person reading?” and the frustration goes on.
