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Worship Confessional – 11.01.09

November 1, 2009 in Church Planting, Faith, Ministry, Worship, Worship Confessional with 17 Comments

Last week, we started the Hostage Series at Church at Bethany by focusing on WORRY.

To be completely honest, I knew I would struggle with this series. I’m kind of a hostage to myself. I worry about everything… even over the silliest things that really don’t need to be worried about.

This week, God spoke right to my heart… BITTERNESS.

What really hit home was when Matt said this:

Bitter people…
… tend to justify bitterness
… tend to be overly critical
… secretly celebrate the misfortune of others
… tend to write-off groups of people
… fail to recognize the bitterness in the mirror

I am guilty of all of these things.

There have been times I thought I had gotten rid of my bitterness because I “weeded” by cutting it off at the stem. But because I never FULLY dealt with ME, it always came back. My bitterness is deeply rooted. I’m not sure where my bitterness came from… but at this point, it really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I can NOT stay bitter anymore. I have a husband and two sons that deserve more than just my reserves. The only way to kill the root of bitterness is WITH forgiveness. Forgiveness towards people who have hurt me… and forgiveness to myself for hurting myself AND others. How dare I hold forgiveness from people and even myself when God has sacrificially forgiven me?

“… forgiveness meant that God is for giving, and that we are here for giving too, and that to withhold love or blessings is to be completely delusional.” ~ Anne Lamott

I’m thankful for the blood of Jesus. I’m thankful for another day. And I’m thankful for the opportunities to change old broken relationships for the better.

Today’s Sunday Setlist was:

Holy Is The Lord – Chris Tomlin
King of Glory – Chris Tomlin
Nothing But The Blood – Robert Lowry
O The Blood – Hillsong
Revelation Song – Jennie Riddle
You Alone – David Crowder
You’ll Come – Brooke Fraser

Highlights: I love a fuller band sound. I love daylight savings for that extra hour. I love how our church pulls together for a common purpose. I love how real Matt Payne is willing to be. I love when the act of worshiping is made easier because you don’t have to worry about the logistics. Today was a great day.

Lowlights: Though I’m not sick, my throat is fighting me on that. Time to give my vocal cords some TLC, I think.

How was YOUR Sunday? Link away.

Worship Confessional – 10.18.09

October 18, 2009 in Church Planting, Faith, Friends, Ministry, Worship, Worship Confessional with 4 Comments

Today started out being just a bit… off.

I’m still processing what happened this morning to get me so rattled. I can’t put my finger on it necessarily, but Sunday mornings have always just been THAT morning. The morning that’s more challenging than the rest. It often feels like everything is against me.

Here’s our typical Sunday:
Get awaken by kids
Change kids’ diapers
Make breakfast for kids
Coax kids into eating breakfast
Threaten bodily harm if they don’t eat their breakfast
Dress kids
Dress them again after they’ve undressed themselves
Load guitars, drum kits, a laptop, chord charts, a diaper bag in the car
Load kids in the car (rather… WRESTLE them)
Get IN the car
Get out of the car to grab things we’ve forgotten to do unnecessary wrestling
Get in the car… again
Breathe

By the time we start the car, Brian and I want to just call it a day. At this point, we haven’t even started to help set up church yet. These are the confessions of a Worship Pastor of a church plant who has two kids under school age and does “church-in-a-box” every week at a local middle school.

Today… I was just tired.

But you know what’s amazing? By the time 10:30am hit and service began… everything was smooth like BUTTA, and I again remembered why I love doing what I do.

Our Sunday Setlist at Church at Bethany this morning was:

You’ll Come – Brooke Fraser
All We Need – Charlie Hall
O Praise Him – David Crowder
Lead Me To The Cross – Brooke Fraser
Grace Like Rain – Todd Agnew
From the Inside Out – Joel Houston
Hosanna – Brooke Fraser

Highlights: Having my old high school friend, Sarah Jean, and her daughter, Mikaelyn, visiting from Seattle. It’s really awesome to see where 13 years takes all of us in our life stories… and how greatly different we both are after all this time, in a really amazing ways. Also, every time I get to play with Aaron Soule is a good day. That guy is funny.

Lowlights: Everything I mentioned above.

How was YOUR worship experience?

Worship Confessional – 10.11.09

October 11, 2009 in Church Planting, Ministry, Music, Worship, Worship Confessional with 5 Comments

I really love Sundays.

I’m not sure why… But I think it may be because I’m no longer hiding in my secrets and I’m truly experiencing the love and grace from a church body. It’s pretty awesome.

This morning, Matt talked about community… our church. How we’re like fish, living in a fishbowl… safe in our church walls, but GOD has created us to be “fish”. We’re not supposed to live in an aquarium, all pretty, perfect, trapped and bound for death. We should be in the river… LIVING. Yes, it may be more dangerous… we may get hurt out there… but that’s where God intended us to be. The LIGHT in the DARKNESS.

What an amazing opportunity and privilege if we chose to live the way we were purposed!

Our Sunday Setlist this morning was:

Beautiful One – Tim Hughes
Evermore – Joel Houston
Enough – Chris Tomlin
Cry In My Heart – Starfield
Healer – Mike Gugliamucci
Mighty To Save – Reuben Morgan

Highlights: We set up in less than an hour which gave me some time to really chat with people before the service. And it’s pretty amazing how the conversations now are “below surface” conversations. I LOVE THAT!!! We’re talking about REAL things. I didn’t sleep very well last night (nothing new there) so I was VERY pleased that my voice didn’t give out on me.

Lowlights: Our family has been fighting a bug. It came home with Chance from school and we’re all trying not to get sick… but alas… we are ALL sick. Please pray for our family’s health… and that we don’t get the swine flu because that would be lamesauce.

How was YOUR Sunday?

Worship Confessional – 09.20.09 – “SIN”

September 20, 2009 in Church Planting, Faith, Family, Jenni, Marriage, Ministry, Personal Entries, Worship, Worship Confessional with 37 Comments

Today was a BIG day for us.

We had been asking for prayer because we, Brian and I, were sharing our story.

The Sunday Setlist today was:

Not To Us – Chris Tomlin
O Praise Him – David Crowder
O Worship The King – Chris Tomlin Version
Mighty To Save – Reuben Morgan (Response)

As you can see, we only had three songs (the 4th was in video form at the very end of the service)… because the sermon and our story took the majority of the service. I usually write about our sets and how the musical/technical portion of our services went in these Worship Confessionals, but today, it’s just MY CONFESSIONAL.

I want to encourage you guys to listen to the complete podcast of the sermon HERE on the Church at Bethany website , but we thought we would post JUST our portion here. It’s about 20 minutes, so get a drink and get comfortable:

Click here to listen to Our Story.

Though the majority of our support encouraged us and helped propel us forward to share our story, a couple of people tried to talk us out of it. We know that they were mostly worried for us and were trying to protect us, but in hindsight, we can see that it was Satan using them to try to keep us from sharing what he would have rather kept trapped in the dark. We say “in hindsight” because today was INCREDIBLY powerful. In fact, barely any of it was about us.

Yes, we shared OUR story of sin, forgiveness, hope and redemption… but what it really did, was allow people to realize the freedom they had in releasing their demons.

We discovered OUR story was not only OUR story, but so many others. We had a few couples tell us we basically just told THEIR story. I never thought God would use OUR story to help release others into the light… into HIS Truth.

Brian and I are SO glad we obeyed. We put our fear to the side, ignoring Satan’s whispers to hide. This morning was about SO much more than us.

God is in the business of restoration and healing.

Please continue to pray for our healing… and all those who stepped out of the darkness today. This is our “Once upon a time…”

Humbly in the Process of Restoration,

Jenni

P.S. Yes… I still have my job as the Worship Pastor at Church at Bethany. They have graciously been walking Brian and me through our healing process.

Worship Confessional – 09.13.09

September 13, 2009 in Church Planting, Faith, Ministry, Music, Worship, Worship Confessional with 2 Comments

Today was such an awesome day!

Not only was it the first day to our new series: The Story of Everything… but Matt decided we should change stuff up. Just for fun.

We moved ALL of the music worship portion to the front end of the service. In other words, we didn’t have a “response time”. We sang 6 songs up front with a break for announcements after the first two songs (we usually do announcements at the VERY END of the service).

Here was our Sunday Setlist:

Evermore – Joel Houston
Meet With Me – Lamont Hiebert
Jesus Paid It All – Kristian Stanfill Version
I Worship You – Generation Unleashed
The Stand – Joel Houston
Shout to the Lord – Darlene Zschech

It was really fun to mix things up, but I have to say the best part was actually having an opportunity to take 6 songs worth of time to get to a place of connection with our Creator.

After “Jesus Paid It All”, I read Psalm 5 with no musical background. In the silence, there was nothing but the words David wrote how many years ago. I love how he so perfectly put into words the very cry of my heart. It was really a privilege to just sit and soak in God’s words… a whole chapter…

During “The Stand”, I asked the church to raise their arms high in surrender. It’s SO awkward to do it when you feel like you’re the only one, but the reality is sometimes it takes us PHYSICALLY lifting up our arms in order for our hearts to follow. It’s amazing how freeing it is to throw caution to the wind and just worship Him in reckless abandon.

Highlights: There was a woman in the room who “came home” after a long time being away. Her story is one of being completely broken. She, like many of us, chose a route she thought would be better and not only hurt others in the process, but really lost herself. Today… she came home. She came home to a gracious, loving, forgiving husband and a church family who is just glad to see her come home. But best of all, she came home to a God who was waiting for her to let Him love her. She bawled during most of the service. The cry that you can’t control… I call it the “ugly cry”… yet, something about her tears were SO beautiful. SHE IS BEAUTIFUL… and completely restored in her humility. Today, she was baptized. Her past is gone… her journey begins today.

I SO can relate to her story. I, too, have gone astray. I, too, have thought my way was better that His. I, too, have hurt the one’s I love more than I ever intended and WAY more than they ever deserved. Yet God is good! He waited for me. He waited for me to come home. In exchange for my debts and humility, He has restored me COMPLETELY and will continue to refine me into who He has called me to be.

There IS hope, my friends. There IS redemption. I promise!

This is the only highlight that matters. I have NO lowlights in today’s Worship Confessional.

How was YOUR Sunday?

Worship Confessional – 08.30.09

August 31, 2009 in Church Planting, Faith, Ministry, Worship, Worship Confessional with 4 Comments

Yesterday’s worship service felt like a satisfying breath of fresh air after months of treading water.

I’ve mentioned in the past posts that I struggle with feeling ready to lead in the services due to the amount of set up and family “chaos” I have with me on Sunday mornings. It’s just part of being a part of a church plant. However, yesterday, I dropped Crystal off at the airport 1.5 hours before we showed up for church set up. I had 45 minutes in the car just to myself after I dropped her off. I chose to keep the radio off and just pray and sing.

By the time I got to the church, my heart was in a totally different place than on a regular Sunday morning when Brian and I are trying to herd our babies out of the house. I had already connected with God, so I was TOTALLY prepared to help others connect. I don’t know how it went for the rest of the congregation, but overall, I felt like it all just clicked… the set up, the worship, the fellowship time… all of it. I was so thankful.

Here’s the Sunday Setlist:

All We Need – Charlie Hall
Desert Song – Brooke Fraser
How Great Is Our God – Chris Tomlin
Mighty To Save – Reuben Morgan
Our Great God – Mac Powell & Fernando Ortega
Sweetly Broken – Jeremy Riddle
Till I See You – Joel Houston & Jadwin Gillies

Highlights: Definitely having a REAL and rare quiet time alone in the car prior to the service… having my heart in the right place. I’ll have to figure out how to do something like that every Sunday morning (obviously not that extended, but just some alone time). I think EVERYONE showed up to set up yesterday morning to help set up, because we got started late due to the school being locked up when we got there, but we STILL got set up within 15-20 minutes. This NEVER happens. We sound checked and got everything up and going a good 45 minutes before doors opened… so all of the set-up crew sat around with VooDoo donuts and just got to fellowship. My kids were also in great, behaving moods. That always helps.

We had NO technical issues and a pretty full house. We had to pull out MORE chairs during the service to accommodate all the newcomers. Brian leaned over at one point in the service and said, “I think we’ve hit some kind of strange momentum during summer the last month!” We’ll take it. I love that people in the Bethany area are just WALKING to church to check it out… and what’s better is that some are staying.

Lowlights: I cant say there’s much. It was the last day of our series “The Real OT”… kinda sad about that cuz I actually really liked this series. I LOVE the Old Testament though. Also, at one point during the sermon, it got pretty noisy with babies crying/fussing. We don’t have a nursery through the summer and it’s been pretty good till yesterday. I felt for the parents trying to calm their child and miss part of the sermon. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the kids fussing… that’s just real life… it happens. I feel for the flustered parent who’s struggling with feeling self-conscious about their flailing child and missing out on their experience. I just want to help serve them. We’ll get back to having a nursery in September.

So… how was YOUR Sunday?