A Worship Leaders Prayer

Our Father,

Than you for making every person

an essential part of your Church and your purpose!

Thank you for giving us Spirit-born passions

and the power and the gifts of your Spirit to fulfill our part.

Thank you for calling everyone to play!

We praise you for the privilege of celebrating you

in the community of saints;

You are not only good, but all good and only good-

And we worship you!

Please forgive us when we presume our roles are more important than others,

for bending into soulless entertaining,

and for confusing emotional hype for spiritual reality.

We confess

we sometimes dance at your party and eat your food

without acknowledging your presence,

without enabling others to enter into you.

Keep us full of your Holy Spirt, Lord.

Fill us with passion to help everyone we lead enter into you,

To find their place and call

as their hearts are opened to the reality of your presence and their importance!

Pour out your Spirit and release your gifts

even as we worship;

enable us to be instruments of worship-not just players of instruments.

All for your glory, all in Jesus' name.

Lord, let it be.

-Kenn Gulliksen

100 Songs.

So I saw my brother do this and I liked the idea. So I'm stealing it; but tweaking it a bit... Here we go, my 100 most recently played songs. They're all good, I recommend them to everyone!

1. Dave Barnes : Loving You, Loving Me
2. Adam Watts : How Does It Feel

3. Coldplay : The Hardest Part

4. Maroon 5 : Wake Up Call

5. Kaye West : Paranoid

6. Gavin DeGraw : Medicate the Kids

7. Jason Mraz : Coyotes

8. Rob Blackledge : Beautiful Mistake
9. Andy Davis : Earth and Venus

10. Craig David : Walking Away

11. Blue Merle : Every Ship Must Sail Away
12. Coldplay : Speed of Sound

13. Cute Is What We Aim For : Newport Living

14. Dashboard Confessional : Bend and Not Break

15. Emerson Hart : If You're Gonna Leave

16. Hellogoodbye : Baby, Its Fact

17. The Hush Sound : The Boys Are Too Refined

18. The Hush Sound : Not Your Concern

19. Jack's Mannequin : Dark Blue

20. Dave Barnes : Nothing Else

21. Dave Barnes : Miles To Go

22. Copeland : I'm Safer On An Airplane

23. David Gray : This Years Love

24. David Gray : Babylon

25. Keith Urban : Sweet Thing

26. Keane : Everybody's Changing

27. Keith Urban : I Told You So

28. Kim Walker : Where You Go, I Go

29. Chris Quilala : Your Love Never Fails

30. Lovedrug : Happy Apple Poison

31. Marc Broussard : Let the Music Get Down In Your Soul

32. Maroon 5 : Not Coming Home

33. Matt Wertz : Like the Last Time

34. Matt Wertz : Naturally

35. John Mayer : Belief

36. Jimmy Eat World : Here It Goes

37. Jesse McCartney : Just So You Know

38. Jason Mraz : Curbside Prophet

39. Jason Mraz : Geek In the Pink
40. Jamie Cullum : Twentysomething

41. James Blunt : Wisemen

42. Jon McLaughlin : Amelia's Missing

43. Justin Timberlake : Lovestoned

44. Rob Blackledge : Get Loose

45. Justin Timberlake : What Goes Around

46. Justin Timberlake : Seniorita

47. The Killers : When We Were Young

48. Maroon 5 : The Sun

49. Michael Buble : Me And Mrs. Jones

50. Michael Buble : Everything

51. Matthew West : The Motions

52. Melissa How : All Consuming Fire

53. Michael Jackson : Billie Jean

54. Michael Jackson : Black or White

55. Muse : Starlight
56. Nsync : Do Your Thing

57. Nathan Angelo : Leigh

58. Nathan Angelo : They Ain't Far Behind

59. Jamie Cullum : Mind Trick

60. NeYo - Because of You

61. New Radicals : Mother, We Just Can't Get Enough

62. Oliver James : Long Time Coming

63. OneRepublic : Say (All I Need)

64. OneRepublic : Stop and Stare

65. Paul Wright : South Beach

66. Paul Wright : From Sunrise to Sunset

67. Chris Thile : Wrong Idea

68. Chris Thile : I'm Nowhere and You're Everything

69. Chris Thile : Locking Doors

70. Chris Brown : Forever

71. Ben Folds : Losing Lisa

72. Ben Folds : Adelaide

73. Andy Davis : Fine China
74. Weezer : Island In the Sun

75. The Verve : Bittersweet Symphony

76. Tracy Chapman : Fast Car

77. Steve Means : Take A Look At Yourself

78. The Rocket Summer : Do You Feel

79. The Rocket Summer : All I Have

80. Ryan Cabrera : Shine On

81. The Killers : Somebody Told Me
82. Keane : The Frog Prince

83. Jon McLaughlin : For You From Me
84. Jon McLaughlni : Prayin To the Wrong God

85. John Mayer : Why Georgia

86. The Gabe Dixon Band : Sitting At the Station

87. The Gabe Dixon Band : Expiration Date

88. The Fray : Over My Head

89. Ferras : Hollywood's Not America

90. Daft Punk : Digital Love

91. Daft Punk : Aerodynamic

92. Craig David : Hidden Agenda

93. O.A.R. : Love and Memories
94. The Postal Service : Such Great Heights
95. Phantom Planet : California
96. Aqualung : Brighter Than Sunshine
97. Coldplay : Violet Hill
98. Sara Bareilles : Many the Miles

99. Shawn McDonald : Gravity

100. Snow Patrol : Run

This Is For You, Mom.

Here ya go, Mom! Jonny took this on Sunday. We have a lot more, too, so I'll send them to you. These two were taken during our morning rehearsal.

Prank.

I just want to share this with everyone. I was at Miracle Camp this weekend and had a blast helping with different events and games and hanging with camp friends! Saturday night though, Me and two other friends (Ryan Thill and Frank Colarusso) decided to burry a friends (Adam Sturdavent) car in snow. We didn't really have any special reason that we picked his car over anyone elses, he just happend to have a small car and I knew it was parked all by itself across the road. I'm pretty proud of our prank, so I just wanted to share it with all of you.

God is Good.

Currently, I have no job. I have bills that need paid, but no job. We all know that this situation doesn't work out too well. Being honest, although I love it up here in Detroit, I love my job as a worship leader and the work/planning involved, my job situation is beginning to really discourage me. Thankfully, I have Janurary's bills paid for, but I'm running low on everything else, and I dont have much money left... With all that said, I've been having a tough time the past couple weeks. I keep most things bottled up inside, and unless you know me very well, you probably wouldn't even know that I've been pretty stressed out lately. On the inside, and when I'm alone, the lack of a job/lack of money, is really getting to me. I've been praying constantly that God will give me a job! A good one that pays the bills and gives me the ability to set some money aside to save. I also pray that until I can find a job, that He will give me the funds to be able to pay my bills without having to worry about being late on payments... Well, God is good! The other night, Josh handed me a check. Someone from Evident Church who knows my situation decided to help me out! Its such a blessing! I was blown away! I actually opened it up in front of Josh, and did a pretty good job at keeping my cool while I was with him, but once he went upstairs, I fell to my knees and cried. :) I'm moved to tears now just thinking about it. I am more grateful than you can imagine. I serve an awesome God who loves me and provides for me. Thank you, Jesus.

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:19

I just wanted to share this praise of mine. :) Its encouraged me, and hopefully will encourage you also. God provides! Its not always in ways that we would think, but He comes through, and His timing is PERFECT!

Your Love Never Fails.

I strongly recommend that you all go out and buy this CD! I'm not sure what stores its available at, but I know you can get it on iTunes, thats where I got it. This CD is great! Its a great worship album! My Brother, Seth actually told me about this one, and I believe we share the same song as our favorite: You Won't Relent. Go buy it. You won't regret it.

Here's a link to listen to You Won't Relent:
http://free.napster.com/player/?play_id=24885087&type=track

Flying Sports Cars and Nifty Jackets.

Its 2009!! Gosh! I'm starting to feel old, and I'm only 24! I feel like my life has flown by! Its funny, I remember-what seems like ages ago-when I was younger, my brothers and I liked the Back To the Future movies. I think its in Back To the Future II where Doc and Marty McFly hop in the Delorrian and time travel to the future... 2015. Haha! We aren't quite there yet, but thats only 6 years away! Where's all the flying sports-cars and sky highways? Or those inflatable, auto-drying, re-sizable nifty jackets... or HOVER BOARDS! Now those would be sweet!! -Stay away from the water though! But for real, its 2009, time flies!

I was talking with my brother tonight about worship stuff, trying to get an idea of something to share with my church to lead into the worship set, and of course, being the awesome, worship leading, older brother that he is, he helped me out. I think we tend to overlook what worship really means. What is worship? I feel like the typical answer would be "singing songs to God", right? Yes, and no; it goes deeper than that though. Worship is our outward action of showing God how much he really means to us-how much he's worth.
I Googled the question, "What is Christianity?" The first definition listed was, " a monotheistic system of beliefs and practices based on the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus..." Christianity should be more than just a system of beliefs; more than a religion. Its a relationship! Its not something that is required, rather, its our response to how awesome our God is! Think of all the things that God has given us... Now, how much of that do we deserve? None of it! We don't deserve anything! As humans, we deserve death-its the result of our sin. We are born with it. There's no getting out of it. God, however has given us so much! He's given us everthing! The very breath in our lungs is a gift! What a great reason to worship!
One of the songs that we're singing this morning is I'll Stand by Hillsong. I love this song. The chorus of it goes like this:

I'll stand with arms high and heart abandoned
In awe of the One who gave it all
I'll stand, my soul, Lord, to You surrendered
All I am is Yours

Now, they don't know it yet, but I'm going to encourage Evident Church to sing this song in response to everything that God has done for us. Its a new year, just looking back to 2008, God's done countless things for all of us! But I want to focus on the words for a second... Why do we stand when we worship? Standing is a way of showing honor and respect for something or someone. -Makes me think of our American flag, we stand for our flag, we salute it, we honor and respect our country by standing for our flag and singing the national anthem. In the same way, we stand and sing to God in reverence. Why do we lift our hands? Lifting our hands is a sign of surrender or submission. I picture a police officer shouting at a gunman to stick his hands in the air! Or in war, when a handful of soldiers have been caught and surrounded by the enemy, they lift their hands in the air as an act of surrender. Now, God is not our enemy (maybe I picked a some bad examples, lol), but we lift up or hands to show God that we surrender! We give up! Its up to you God, you're in control now. Thats what the song is talking about. But anyway, I'm rambling, and I need to go to bed. Haha! its late. Good night everyone!