Stopping and slowing down isn’t free.

Yesterday, I interrupted my day to meet somebody that everybody kept saying I should meet. It was really cool, unexpected, and has thrown my whole week totally out of wack. (And I skipped lunch, too… which I can probably stand to do more often…)

There’s a price to be paid for being spontaneous and looking for the opportunities to just meet people and “do life” with them, but those prices are worth paying. I encourage you to stop and smell the roses, talk to somebody, take it slow.

It WILL cost you, but it’s worth it.

Something totally FREE and totally priceless!

I experienced, not once but twice in the past couple weeks, a well-timed and well-placed genuine encouragement. Both came from people I treasure greatly, and when somebody finds something about you that’s cool and shares it with you, boy oh boy, it can fill your tank for a long long time.

I hope you find somebody this week who you appreciate… that you can tell them why you love them. It’s totally free energy! It costs nothing and makes you, them, and the whole world a better place.

Ducks.

So, I’m on my way to work this morning and this whole bunch of ducks is playing around in the water. Not fishing, not doing anything that is “productive”… I’m telling you they were flying back and forth, splashing as big as they could on landing (at each other), and I could swear that I saw them smiling.

Perhaps I should get out a guitar, crank up the volume, and make a bunch of noise to annoy somebody…

Have some fun today, preferably with some friends. Spring is here!

Equip!

The past two weeks I had some stuff happen that made me really glad I’m where I am. You see, lots of worship leaders in churches would be in trouble if they were off the platform for two weeks. My church encourages it, across the board. (I think I’d be in trouble if I were up there every week in fact…) We totally get the Ephesians 4 exhortation to “equip the saints”. It’s not just in our DNA… it IS our DNA…

So… On Saturday I went to a great conference on worship leading, and some great folks were there to “show how it’s done.” On Saturday night I got into the church just in time to attend the service. I didn’t play, help setup or anything. Our worship team was better than the “pros” who had hosted the conference, in my humble opinion. No paid professionals on the platform.

The week before we had another great worship band play with an all-volunteer (unpaid staff I like to call them) group that was great, too. And… that weekend, we had a guest speaker that was one of our volunteers and he did GREAT (another “non-paid” guy)… AND… we had no staff in our Kids church that day either. In short, every aspect of the service was handled by people who were equipped by paid staff to do it, not paid AS staff to do it… and it went GREAT!

It’s a great time and place to be alive.

Worship… True Worship

Two friends helped me to start building a new deck today. Two great friends who love Jesus, and with every stone they chipped at, with every batch of concrete we mixed together, with every funny quip we shared (in good Christian love) with each other… we worshipped God together far more than we ever do just standing in a church building and singing.

It was wonderful. Thanks guys! You shared your own gift with me today, and at the same time, shared Christ. Bless you!

Feels like heaven

So, yesterday I did something I almost never do, I went to church. I didn’t unlock the building for anybody, help set up anything, play, or even do announcements. My wife and I just showed up for the early Sunday service, and then when it was over we went home. I rarely get a day off… it’s weird… But it felt good to be in a room full of people loving and seeking God and loving each other and loving their neighbors.

Then last night we had our yearly volunteer appreciation dinner, and for our normal “musical” segment of the program, which is usually a silly song that the pastors sing together, we actually had all of us on-stage as a worship band, guitars, bass, drums, singing, the whole schmiel… We led worship for a short worship set and then played a silly parody version of “Put a little Love In Your Heart” that was so much fun.

What was cool was, that song’s new lyrics (written brilliantly by our own Senior Pastor) was about “being the church” and showing God’s love to the world. We were singing it to a room filled with people who are really great at showing God’s love, and the feeling of singing those worship songs with them and singing that appreciation song to them was overwhelming.

It felt like what heaven will be like, the family of God loving on each other.

Why I do what I do

So I’m sitting in a hospital room visiting with a member of our congregation last night, and he’s telling me about all the ways that our church has helped him get closer to God. We are, it appears, not very judgmental, so he felt at home and kept coming back, and feels closer to Jesus than he ever did before. We encouraged our people to start really digging into God’s Word on a daily basis with the Life Journal and he and his wife have been reading the Bible like they didn’t used to. It’s good to do what I do after all! It’s good to serve here. It’s good to be alive.

Say it with me… unassisted triple play.

Talk about individual achievement. The chances of a second baseman catching the ball, hitting the bag, and tagging the runner, in that order, so that he gets three outs all by himself (it’s only happened 14 times in Major League history, fewer times than a pitcher has pitched a perfect game), are so infinitessimal it’s extraordinary, only 14 times in 100 years. Seems like a spectacular example of individual achievement, doesn’t it. BUT… consider this. Asdrubal Cabrera had to be so proud of himself when it happened just this past Monday May 12, but consider how proud his Dad who probably played catch with him was, how proud his manager and coaches who helped him get better at what he does so he’d be ready for this extraordinary opportunity, and the guy who coached him in little league so many years ago was. Even our most outstanding individual achievements rest on the shoulders of those who brought us to be the people we are today. So find somebody who helped you be who you are today… and thank them!

Be more quiet now…

Lately I’ve been privvy to a lot more people arguing and debating (usually just arguing) than normal. Could it be that we don’t remember how to be slow to speak and quick to listen? I know I forget that… all the time… Guess I should shut up now…

Stay hungry, stay humble.

This weekend at my church I brought in a guest worship leader. His name is Aaron Greer, check out his band (Aaron, Clarence, and Scott-o) here. Here’s the thing. Aaron plays guitar WAY better than I will ever hope to. So when I’m in a situation like that, I have two choices. I can be intimidated and let that change the way I behave, maybe that will even make me act like a jerk… OR… I can just bask in somebody else’s talent, celebrate it and maybe even learn a thing or two on the way. Whatever the case, I grow more by being around people that are better, faster, smarter, whatever… than me, than by being intimidated by them. I hang around people who are smarter than me at work all the time. (Sometimes it makes me wonder why they let me stay here.) Makes me want to learn more and get better at what God has called me to do. Even if I’ll never play guitar as well as Aaron.