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Worship Confessional: 03.27.11

March 29, 2011 in Church Planting, Faith, Life Experience, Ministry, Paseo, Worship Confessional with 6 Comments

It took a couple of days for me to recover from Sunday enough to write about it.

Sunday was… what’s the word… CHALLENGING. It was a small staffed week at Paseo because it was the end of Spring Break. Just me and my guitar for music and just Greg for sermon. However, just because we had less people on the platform didn’t mean that the attendance was less. Nope. Still had full houses both gatherings.

Let’s start at the beginning:

Brian and I get there at 8ish (like usual) to set up. I wasn’t here last Sunday because we were in Phoenix, so when I started to look for some of our sound gear to start setting up, it was like a wild goose chase. We had a lot of people step in to help last week, but because they don’t necessarily run the technical side of things on a regular basis, gear had been placed in different locations.

What should have taken me 30 minutes to set up and get going, ended up taking me 1.5 hours… right up to the start-up of service. Greg was great. When he showed up, he ran around looking for stuff with me, found most of it, let us start a few minutes late and still delivered a flawless message.

We actually started the first song without a working vocal mic for me. So, I just led acoustically. Justin (one of our worship team members) finally stepped up to the board while I was up and remedied the situation (it’s tough being being behind the sound board AND on the platform at the same time, haha!). However bad we started out, we seemed to find our footing by the middle of the second song. And by “we”, I mean “me”.

I had never been so glad for a very short set. Our Sunday Setlist was only 3 songs because we had planned a Prayer Walk over Downtown El Paso for Paseo attenders that morning (you can do that with church plants):

1. Desert Song – Brooke Fraser
2. Grace Like Rain – Todd Agnew
3. Hosanna – Brooke Fraser

Once we took care of technical difficulties (I do believe Satan lives in sound equipment), you would think we’d have no more distractions. Yeah. No such luck today.

One of our attenders, Becky, is a schizophrenic gal that works in the adult entertainment industry. I’m not sure if she came to church high on the wrong meds or what, but she decided she was going to stand up for most of the service adjusting her pants… in the wrong direction. Greg got an eyefull… but he just kept on going. Our sweet gal also decided to stay for both gatherings. During worship, she also enjoyed the music so much she decided to lead the rhythm section that I didn’t schedule. She clapped, LOUDLY, on 1, 3, 2.5, 3.75 and 4.25. This week also happened to be a week I didn’t use in-ear monitors.

I can’t remember if I giggled or not because I was just so worn down during the services, but I WILL tell you I prayed… A LOT!

However… even with ALL the distractions, I still feel the gatherings went extremely well. We had Nate & Andy share their story:

CLICK HERE to access the podcast from this week. It was a short sermon, but a great one in my opinion.

With that said, I’m ok if we don’t have this kind of a weekend ever again. I know Greg and I are still recovering from Sunday. It honestly zapped us. Please pray for us… for rest and recovery. For those of you who have had similar days at work, you know exactly what I’m asking prayer over.

Now, your turn. What’s your craziest ministry/work-day-gone-bad story?
GO!

Worship Confessional – 03.20.11

March 21, 2011 in Church Planting, Faith, Ministry, Missions, Paseo, Worship Confessional with 2 Comments

Here’s my attempt on a Worship Confessional away from home.

This week, Brian’s parents are treating us on a Spring Break family vacation in Phoenix, Arizona. This is where Mom grew up so about a year ago, we planned on coming here to visit grandpa and spending some family time together. Little did we know back then that we would be moving to El Paso, Texas which is only a six hour drive away from Phoenix.

I wasn’t at Paseo this week… and from my understanding, it was a TOUGH morning of setting up for our church plant. The coffee shop didn’t open on time for us and left the set up team standing outside for an hour. The good news is they finally got there and our amazing team pulled a full set up of in 30 minutes. The bad news is they didn’t get the podcasting set up in time so we don’t have one this week.

Roberta Sanders led while I was away… which meant it was great!
Her Sunday Setlist was:
1. Glory To God Forever – Steve Fee
2. Beautiful Lord – Leeland
3. Come and Listen – David Crowder Band
4. How He Loves Us – John McMillan
5. Hungry – Kathryn Scott

We also didn’t get the sound hooked up in time for the video to run, but since it was done, I can post it here. Deb shared her story on what it meant to be a community of justice in El Paso, Texas:

I love how Deb is so truly honest about her heart and past generalizations towards others unlike her but also how God changed her heart by her simply choosing to be obedient in service. She stepped out of her comfort zone to reveal more of God’s justice system, which doesn’t always match up with OUR justice system.

How about YOU? How does YOUR community experience justice through YOU?

Worship Confessional – 03.13.11

March 21, 2011 in Adultery, Church Planting, Faith, Life Experience, Marriage, Ministry, Paseo, Worship Confessional with 6 Comments

We continued on with our James series this week and Brian & I got to share our story here in El Paso.

First, here’s our Sunday Setlist:
1. Cannons – Phil Wickham
2. All Creatures of our God and King – David Crowder Version
3. Lead Me To The Cross – Brooke Fraser
4. Better is One Day – Matt Redman
5. Cannons (Reprise)

Our Worship Team this week:
1. Patrick Leong – Worship Leader & Acoustic Guitar
2. Sam Guzman – Acoustic Guitar 2
3. Milt Haddock – Vocals
4. Michelle Gutierrez – Bass
5. Curtis Williams – Drums
6. me – keys and vocals

It was really cool to help Patrick process through leading a team he’s not necessarily used to leading and watch him lead UP… not just by telling people what to do (though he’s plenty assertive), but to lead by encouragement and love. It was a fun week to just be a part of the team.

Now, onto the gathering. Nate spoke on being a people under the Word. CLICK HERE to listen to his podcast. It’s kind of a miracle we even have a podcast for this sermon because Nate doesn’t like mics. In fact, the last time I put one on him, he ripped it off mid-sermon. I just about taped our mic around his face… and that seemed to do the trick.

Like I said before, Brian and I got to share our story…

It’s so interesting. I used to think being UNDER the Word meant I was living under a list of rules and regulations. Now, I realize that living under the Word means I’m living under a blanket of freedom.

What does living UNDER THE WORD mean to you?

Worship Confessional: 03.06.11

March 21, 2011 in Church Planting, Faith, Ministry, Paseo, Worship Confessional with 0 Comments

I’m playing catch up with Worship Confessionals, but as you know, it’s because life got crazy!

Better late than never, right?

Our Sunday Setlist:
1. Blessed Be Your Name – Matt Redman
2. You Are My World – Marty Sampson
3. Meet With Me – Lamont Hiebert
4. Lead Me To The Cross – Brooke Fraser
5. The Stand – Joel Houston

The Worship Team:
I led from the keyboard, Justin Kirklin & Roberta Sanders on acoustic guitars and backup vocals, and Mikell West on the cajon.

Paseo is currently going through the book of James and talking through REAL life stories (you can access all our podcasts HERE). We’re capturing life stories of people from the Paseo community, and it has been humbling for me to watch, to say the least. Brian and I got to share our story on the 13th, but I’ll write more about that later.

On this specific day, Greg talked on a society of suffering. Lindsay shared her story (excuse the audio… we recorded outside and so it’s a bit messy):

I don’t think most of us know what it really means to suffer. We know discomfort, but not what it really means to suffer every day. We know how to complain. We know how to worry about things that mean very little in the grand scheme of things. We know how to judge others who aren’t living as we are. But we don’t know how to survive suffering the way so many others do.

I’m not saying we NEED to suffer to experience God, but God definitely sent His only Son to suffer for us. And that counts for something. It counts for something HUGE. Suffering doesn’t necessarily mean to undergo a penalty. Sometimes, suffering is simply allowing yourself to feel and to experience life as it comes at you. And on the other side of suffering is surviving.

So, I’m gonna choose to suffer more. Not because I’m a martyr, but because I’m a survivor.

What does SUFFERING mean to YOU?

Worship Confessional – 02.27.11

February 28, 2011 in Church Planting, Ministry, Music, Paseo, Worship Confessional with 2 Comments

Let’s start with the “lists”.

The Team:
Guitars: Sammy Gutierrez & me
Cajon: Vashti Gutierrez

The Sunday Setlist:
1. Better Than Life – Marty Sampson
2. All We Need – Charlie Hall
3. Come Thou Fount – Robert Robinson
4. Revelation Song – Jennie Riddle

This week was about the mission of the Church. How we communicate… and what we communicate. Our goal is to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom by word and deed so people may enter into it. However, we as Christians SUCK at this.

We either take the truth of it all and create lists of “to-do’s” and then judge everyone by how well we follow that list OR we become emotional story whores, just waiting for the next “spiritual high”.

Nate did a great job communicating where our hearts need to be when we talk about the Greatest Gift. He also freed us up and commissioned us to speak freely instead of just leaving it to the “celebrity pastors”. I think a lot of us needed to hear that.

After our two gatherings, we baptized 3 of our attenders. Greg wrote about it HERE, so I won’t re-write… but I will say this: I LOVE MY HOME CHURCH! What I love most are the stories behind each attender. Nothing fake. Nothing condescending. Just the goal of real community because Paseo really, truly CARES about their community.

So there you go… CHEERS to community. Let’s build something together!

How was YOUR Sunday?

Worship Confessional: 2.20.11

February 23, 2011 in Church Planting, Ministry, Music, Paseo, Worship, Worship Confessional with 1 Comment

My last Worship Confessional I wrote was last May. Let’s see if I remember how to do this thing…

Last Sunday was a blast. Actually… the first Sunday I led was two Sundays ago. It was an acoustic set with three guitars (Justin Kirklin, Sammy Gutierrez & myself). But it’s been a week… and I was on a writing strike, so I’m not gonna go back to describe that set except that it was RAD! It’s always fun bringing it down to just the acoustics.

Ok… last Sunday:

The Team:
Guitars: Patrick Leong & me
Bass: Michelle Gutierrez
Keys: Vanessa Williams
Drums: Curtis Williams

Our Set:
1. Beautiful One (Jeremy Camp Version) – Tim Hughes
2. Famous One – Chris Tomlin
3. My Glorious -Martin Smith
Sermon: Forgotten Ways – Sacrifice
4. Speak To Me – Dave Lubben
5. All For Love – Mia Fields

During “Speak To Me”, Greg set it up so that we could personally pray for the people of Paseo. Instead of an alter call, he asked those who wanted prayer to stand. The staff and elder team then went to them and prayed over them. They met them where THEY were. Then… one of my highs was seeing those who were just prayed for lean over and pray for someone else. THAT’S CHURCH RIGHT THERE!

We pulled out pretty old songs for this last weeks set. But what was fun was seeing people sing, eyes closed and hands lifted up. Some even danced. They sang because they knew the words. Their hearts remembered another time in their spiritual walk. Their souls could sing the praises of their Maker.

For me, there’s nothing better than hearing voices singing upward together all because I’ve helped coordinate a downbeat and a common key to start in. There’s nothing more humbling than helping usher His people to worship at the foot of His Throne.

It’s good to be back.

How about you? How was your Sunday experience?