My name is Pride. I am a cheater.
I cheat you of your God-given destiny…
because you demand your own way.
I cheat you of contentment…
because you “deserve better than this.”
I cheat you of knowledge…
because you already know it all.
I cheat you of healing…
because you are too full of you to forgive.
I cheat you of holiness…
because you refuse to admit when you are wrong.
I cheat you of vision…
because you’d rather look in the mirror than out a window.
I cheat you of genuine friendship…
because nobody’s going to know the real you.
I cheat you of love…
because real romance demands sacrifice.
I cheat you of greatness in heaven…
because you refuse to wash another’s feet on earth.
I cheat you of God’s glory…
because I convinced you to seek your own.
My name is Pride. I am a cheater.
You like me because you think I’m always looking out for you.
Untrue.
I’m looking to make a fool of you.
God has so much for you, I admit, but don’t worry…
If you stick with me you’ll never know.
Poem by Beth Moore.
I heard this today and felt that I needed to share it.
Okay, so you know these “Sunday Setlist” posts I’ve been doing these last several weeks? Well, the main directory (so to speak) of all of the Sunday Setlist posts can be found over at fredmckinnon.com and this last Sunday was the one year anniversary of worship leaders from all over blogging about their sets and sharing them for all to see. Since it was the one year anniversary, there was a celebration and prizes to be randomly given away to those who either commented with or blogged a Sunday Setlist post, read the one year anniversary entry here. You’ll notice that at the bottom of the post, amidst all of the links by all of the worship leaders who blogged about it this week, that I am at number 28.
Anyway, I woke up this morning to find this tweet:
I won! I immediately went to check out the deets and sure enough, there it was. Under “Today’s winner is…” was my name, my blog, and my twitter.
Can you say awesome?
So now I have these five cd’s on the way:
Matt Papa – Your Kingdom Come
Lanae Hale – Back & Forth
Matt Papa – Scripture Songs Vol 1
Jason Gray – new record releasing this fall
Downhere – new Christmas CD releasing this fall
I’m super stoked about this and can’t wait for the cd’s to arrive! I’ll probably do another post when the stuff gets here, maybe a review of the music, maybe just another “ohmyIcan’tbelieveIwon” post. We’ll see. Thank you, Fred, for everything that you do via your blog and ministry.
I’m exhausted. Today was a serious “bring it” day at our youth group gatherings tonight. We had a very high tempo, high intensity set along with the same setup we had last week with two electric guitars instead of one electric and one acoustic. Our setlist tonight looked like this:
The Time Has Come – Joel Houston (Hillsong United) All Day – Marty Sampson (Hillsong United) Tell the World – Marty Sampson (Hillsong United)
(detecting a pattern here?) Hosanna – Brooke Fraser (Hillsong United)
Like I said: high tempo, high intensity. This was the first time our band has done The Time Has Come at youth group, we practiced it a little bit last summer but we never played it during a set. This song was a song that was done at CHIC, so students knew it pretty well already, which is always nice when you have a new song and half of the people already know it. It was awesome, for our first real time playing it together, the team did a really good job with it.
Yes, we did All Day last week. But we did it again this week to get it lodged in the heads of everyone a little bit that way it’s familiar when we play it in the future. I love this song. It’s simple, it’s real easy to follow, it’s loud.
Tell the World was also a new song for us. We don’t normally do two new songs in one week, but with most people already knowing The Time Has Come, I think it was okay to introduce this one, too. Again, the team did a great job with this song.
I was super excited to do Hosanna, because Krista was going to lead it, and she did an absolutely awesome job with it! It’s awesome to have a female singer on the team, it opens up new songs and arrangements and I think it benefits everyone. The organ pad that Jordan played really added some great texture to this song as it carried it through the verses the way an acoustic guitar normally would. Also, Jonathan played a sick bass riff during the verse that was way cool.
There it is, a seemingly short Sunday Setlist compared to the marathon day that was last week. It was a great Sunday, and I’m very blessed to be able to do what I do here.
I’ve been trying to get my hands on this video for a year and a half. And now, thanks to the miracles of Firefox and the internet, I was able to do it. This is video of the skit that the youth leaders did at the 2008 senior high retreat and is quite possibly the greatest few minutes ever captured on video.
So, last night I announced that I’m leaving Alaska in January to go to Australia for a couple years. Today, I’m asking any and all of you who have pictures and/or videos of me and you to email them to me at dustin@shaggyworshiper.com. I want them for a video that I’m going to make and would like to have as many pictures and videos to work with. So check your cameras, iPhoto libraries, and pictures folders, and video files and send me files that have you and me in them!
The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. – Genesis 12:1
That’s what Abraham had to work with when God came to him. He took his wife, his nephew, his stuff, and he head out for wherever God told him to go. Did Abraham have any idea what he was getting himself into? Probably not.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. – Matthew 9:9
Jesus simply said to Matthew, a tax collector, “Follow me.” and Matthew followed. Did he have any idea what he was getting himself into? Doubt it.
I think Erwin McManus said, “An adventure isn’t really an adventure if you’re not at least a little scared going into it.” He’s right. Adventures aren’t “safe”, they’re not the mundane, every day. If you know how something is going to turn out and what’s going to happen, it isn’t an adventure.
I love Alaska, it’s been home for me for the last six years. From the first time I visited that actually turned into moving here, I have loved living here. The experiences, (who’d have thought that sledding could be so exciting?), the church that I call home, Community Covenant, and the community that has developed here have led to an incredible six years of my life that have literally laid down the foundations for who I am as a person. In the last six years, I have felt more joy, pain, heartache, hope, sorrow, and love than I had in the fourteen years before moving here.
But, I’ve never really felt that I’m going to be here forever. I’ve always felt that my time here was temporary and designed to prepare me for what’s next to come for me. That’s always been a feeling that I’ve wrestled with. I can’t count how many times I’ve gone back and forth between absolutely loving everything here and thinking, “I don’t want to live anywhere else” to wondering, “Am I supposed to go somewhere?”, to just flat out thinking, “I want out of here.” I’m not sure which one of those thoughts resonates with me at the moment, but those are three that have bounced around my skull for a while now.
Come on, Dustin! Get to the point!
In a minute.
On Tuesday June 2, 2009, there was a breakthrough. In a prayer session with some of my closest friends, God made it very clear where I am supposed to go, what I am supposed to do, and when I’m supposed to do it. After the shock and the “oh crap, this is really happening” that takes control of us when something equally exciting and terrifying is presented, we as a group discerned that this is the right thing for me to do. This is the right thing for me to do. For many of you, this probably isn’t a big shock of where it is I’m going, but more so that it’s actually happening.
Starting in January of 2010, I will be attending Hillsong International Leadership College located in Sydney, Australia. I will be there participating in the worship music stream and getting training in Old and New Testament studies, theology, leadership, songwriting, worship leadership, musicianship, as well as helping with the conference that Hillsong puts on during the year. The tentative plan is to do two years down there, but in all honesty and actuality I’m not sure. I might go for three years. I might come back. I might not. So much of this is up in the air and only God know what’s to come.
Right now, I feel like I’m standing at the starting point to this big, vast, expansive mystery that will bless and challenge me to the core. I really have no idea how this is all going to work out, but I’m following what God has called me to do. And I would rather follow God into the unknown than stay than stay at a place that seems safe and comfortable.
This is hands down the biggest thing that I’ve ever done in my life. It dwarfs anything else that I’ve ever done or had to do. Half of me is excited. The other half is scared beyond words. But all of me is going forward with this. Thank you to everyone in my life for the support, love, and encouragement that you’ve shown me. I love you all. I love Alaska, but God has a new adventure for me to participate in, and I’d be a fool if I said no.
If you’ve made it this far in the post, congratulations and thanks for sticking it out as I babbled on for the past eight hundred words or so. I’m going to keep blogging in Australia. This combined with my twitter and facebook are pretty much going to be my connection back. So stick around.
Things are about to get really interesting around here.
As I’ve mentioned a few times now, most of our senior high students were at a youth conference this passed week called CHIC (it stands for Covenant High in Christ. I know, I know, it’s a lame name, but a really cool event). Anyway, the music lineups they had this year at the conference were quite superb with the David Crowder Band and Third Day to name a couple. Below is a video some of Third Day’s time at CHIC that they posted on YouTube.
From all I’ve heard and seen from it, it looks like CHIC was an amazing week and God moved mightily there. Next CHIC is in 2012 and I’d love to go to that one as a leader.
Another Sunday Setlist post recapping the worship set this Sunday at Church. The hub for all of things Sunday Setlist can be found over at FredMcKinnon.com.
Today was an epic and epically long Sunday for me. I played acoustic guitar and co-led the 5:00 service with Autumn and then led worship for both of our youth groups.
The 5:00 service was just me on guitar and Autumn on piano. It was really neat for me to play and lead a set with Autumn, just the two of us, because of how she’s really the one who has taught me just about everything about what it means and what it looks like to lead worship. Our set looked like this:
It Is You – Newsboys Unchanging – Chris Tomlin Everlasting God – Brenton Brown //dismiss kids – greeting// Desert Song – Brooke Fraser (Hillsong) //sermon// It Is Well – Traditional Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus – Traditional //offering// Oh You Bring – Matt Crocker (Hillsong United) You Never Let Go – Matt Redman
We each led four songs, Autumn led three of the four before the sermon, and I led three of the four after the sermon. The time after the sermon was really, really powerful. It was this recognition that no matter what is going or has gone on in our lives, God is still God. It was a really cool moment and the presence of God was right there with us.
Oh You Bring was a new song for us. It was the first time for us playing it in a service and despite it only being the two of us, the arrangement and instrumentation we did on it made it work. All in all it was a great service, and it was really cool to do a simple arrangement, vocal and harmony rich set with the person who taught me basically everything I know.
After the service, however, the day was just getting started. There were still two sets to play for our junior and senior high youth groups. We did a different setup at youth group tonight. We switched to two electrics instead of one acoustic and one electric, we had a female singer on stage with us (who did a great job!), and then had our keys, bass, and drums. Our sets for youth group was as follows:
Dancing Generation – Matt Redman All Day – Marty Sampson (Hillsong United) Mighty to Save – Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding (Hillsong) Overcome – Jon Egan (Desperation Band)
Our team did a great job with these songs. Dancing Generation and All Day were fun and loud. Mighty to Save and Overcome were powerful and worshipful.
It was a great Sunday. However, it was a long, long day. Between practices, sound checks, and actual services, I was at the church from 1:30 to 9:00. I don’t regret any part of the day, but I can’t do this every Sunday.
In a post a few weeks ago, I talked about being a part of what God is doing instead of trying to fit God into what we’re doing. This post falls in line with that, but it takes it to a deeper level and gets a little more specific. I thought it would be good to share some of the ways that our crew here in Eagle River have found work well in planning and preparing worship events and worship sets in general.
***disclaimer*** This is NOT a “5 surefire steps to a blah blah blah…” This isn’t meant to be a cookie-cutter strategy, these are just a few things that we have found work well for us.
Dump the baggage. We want to be in line with God’s plans for the event, and want to remove any distraction or aspect that could distract us from focusing in fully on Christ. So, before we even start brainstorming an order, flow, or other creative elements, pray. Set aside any junk or baggage, confess anything that needs confessing. Basically, get rid of any junk.
Ask and then listen. God knows best, I think we can all agree on that. In prayer, ask God what He wants to do, ask God what He wants us to know. And then, once you ask, listen to how God responds. It’s nice to have something to write with so you can jot down things as they come. It’s also nice to pray as a group, that way you can discern as a group what you feel God is saying to and showing you.
Take it from there. God is creative. We are made in His image. We are designed to be creative. So let’s take what we’ve gotten in prayer and start to build on that. Here is where a lot of songs, scriptures, flow, and an order of events usually come in.
Check back often. Go back often, in prayer, and ask God if you’re on the right track. If something feels off, ask what it is and then work to correct it and continue on.
We’ve found that in doing these things consistently makes things go a lot smoother overall. When we as a group seek God’s will and guidance and discern together where God is leading something, there is less room for egos, there are less disagreements, and there’s less tension between those involved in planning.
Again, this is not a step by step guide to great worship or event planning. It’s just a few things that we’ve found that work and I thought it might be helpful to others.
Make God the center of what you do, and no matter what, the end result will be good.
I was reading in my new Bible that I really dig and I came across a passage that I think many of us know and can recite, but it really hit me in a new way.
A lot of people are able to quote 2 Chronicles 7:14,
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
But, as I was reading this accompanied by the text around it, it really struck me.
When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, the LORD appeared to him at night and said:
“I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. – 2 Chronicles 7:11-16
The thing that really struck me about this passage was reading it in regards to our bodies being a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16, and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). When God says that his eyes and ears will be attentive to the prayers offered in His temple, He is saying that He will hear and listen to the prayers offered from our bodies, our hearts. He has chosen and consecrated us, His temple, so that His Name may be in us forever. His eyes and his heart will always be a there.
Just a cool little revelation that I thought I’d share.
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