Heart for Haiti

Day of Rest

So, its been almost 15 days or so, since I last posted...boy am I behind! Two Sundays worth of set lists, and 3 concerts, I have a lot of work to. Saddest thing is, I just may have lost the 3 people who may be reading this. Come back... please.

My excuse? None really, except a need to rest my brain a bit from work/music stuff

People often talk of being able to "leave work at work". I'm pretty sure this happens less often then people would let on. Years ago I worked at the Dove Ice Cream Factory, simply moving ice cream bars coming down a conveyor belt at an angle, I was the "ice cream bar straightener" the best job I could get as a summer temp. Simple as this job was I would have Laverne and Shirley type nightmares at night when I got home from the 12 hour shifts. A major Snicker's Ice Cream Bar Jam up would be at the center of these "nightmares".

Now, although these nightmares are a thing of the past, I still have a hard time leaving work at work. Being in a creative field such as the one I am in, it's hard to put a schedule to creativity, and I admire those who are able to do this, (if you do this well, please share your tips)! No matter how hard I try, round about 9pm- 12am (the creativity starts to kick in) and of course this is not just Mon- Friday, but Saturday and Sunday too.

The word Sabbath comes from the word Shabbat, which means "to cease", or as I see it... rest the brain. My prayer is that we all, worship leaders, Sunday morning volunteers, Dove Ice Cream Factory workers, can take a look at our busy, busy lives, and find that day of rest, that time to sit and enjoy God's creation, and to hear His voice, a day of rest that God asks us, and wants us to have.

May the Word have the run of the house

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16

Before telling us about the stuff we as musicians like to hear, Paul first tells us to keep the word of Christ in us. The Message translation even says that the word should "have the run of the house"

Practice on Thursday night was good... praise choir practiced for a half hour, then the band came, and practiced with the praise choir. Stacy, a church music student, and field worker from Concordia was our guest pianist, and did a wonderful job. Drummer Dan joined us, which is always nice since after twelve years of contemporary worship, we can count on two hands the amount of Sunday's we have had a drummer. We got through the songs in an efficient manner, and just as the choir was getting ready to leave for the evening, I grabbed a bible to pick a Psalm for a quick devotion, I paged through the Psalms looking for something short, found one, promptly closed the bible, with out reading it, and told the choir to join me in the basement to practice one last song for Easter. "um... Ellen" Janice politely said, "you were going to read a Psalm to us" I looked at the closed bible in my hand, and remembered the 'quick devotion' I was going to have, and realized how one tracked my mind was that evening and on so many other occasions. Forgetting a devotion here, not remembering to pray before worship there. Often I am so focused on the task at hand, I forget about focusing on the One who authors our tasks.

Today, I was reading in Nathan's new blog, www.leadgracefully.com/blog/ and saw words that really spoke to me as I reflected on Thursday's practice. he says

"This week, lighten the load, pick some older songs and do a shorter set so that you can set aside 15 minutes of rehearsal to do a devo, scripture reading, prayer, etc. Let’s prayerfully fall on Jesus, being filled up in the Spirit before attempting to lead others to do the same. "

I believe that my not remembering to spend more time in the Word and prayer with the music groups, is a direct result of me not making the time to do so in my own personal life. Not only am I going to begin proactively securing this time for myself, I think I will also try to find people in our groups, to be devotion and prayer leaders, who would take on that role at practice and before worship.

May the Word have the run of our practices!!

Retreating- Intercessory Prayer

My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord;
in the morning I will direct my prayer to You,
and I will look up.
Psalm 5:3

This past Saturday we held a worship musicians retreat for all 10:00 and Sanctuary instrumentalists and vocalists. Nathan, worship leader at Sanctuary led the retreat, and it was a wonderfully relaxing and enlightening morning. I really appreciated Nathans insight on a number of things, that I have continued to think about. Nathan brought up the idea of each worship team having a prayer intercessor who on Sunday morning would be a part of the band, praying on behalf of the band, the pastor, the congregation and the worship time. Being born and bred Lutheran, this idea of a "prayer warrior" is a bit foreign to me... I imagine a woman with long flowey hair, lots of jewelry, wielding a sword, speaking in tongues, and generally making me feel uncomfortable

I attended a worship service with a prayer intercessor for the first time about 5 years ago in Edmonton, Alberta in the coldest month of Jan, at the worship conference, Break Forth. www.new-creation.net The prayer leader was a man, without jewelry, or long flowey hair, he did not speak in tongues, and the only think he held was a bible. He sat on a stool with the band, and read from the bible and prayed. After a few songs he invited the worshipers to come up if they had prayer requests. Before long, more and more people kneeled at the bottom of the stage, waiting to be prayed for. I myself felt a strong desire to go up to the front, but I couldn't even will myself...the idea of exposing my need for prayer- eegads!

At Sanctuary over the last 5 years, we have often had prayer stations with 1 or 2 "prayer leaders" available to pray with those who care to, but never someone praying throughout the whole service for us. One argument, I have heard against having a prayer intercessor is that they may leave the congregation feeling that they don't need to, or don't have the skills to pray for themselves and the worship service, because someone else is doing it for them.

Either way, I think it would be nice to have someone dedicated to praying for us throughout the service. I'd like to see where we can go with this
And by the way, after 5 years of having prayer leaders at Sanctuary that we could pray with, I have yet to feel comfortable going up and exposing that need...