Make fun of yourself…

Because it’s healthy to be able to laugh at yourself, I laughed at this video:

HT: edsetzer.com

Hope in a brown paper bag

Today my senior pastor taught a message entitled “Hope in a Brown Paper Bag.”  This post isn’t about his message

It’s about how I experienced it this morning.

I’ll be honest…I never expected that today would be the day God would teach me that hope comes in packages that you don’t expect.  What happened? In short, it was one of those morning where it didn’t feel like all the my plans were coming together.

But then it happened…

God moved.

I know that hope deserves a nice package, but it doesn’t require it.

I’m thankful God reminded me that he is still in control.

“Not so Famous” quotes

“You can’t be late and expect to get taco bell!”

When I was about 15 years old I got shoved into the position of leading worship for my church’s youth group by (at that time) the “new” youth pastor.   I learned a lot of things about ministry and leadership at that time, but one of the greatest lessons he taught me was during the one night I arrived late to my own worship team practice.

During the formation of our new worship team we started rehearsing at around 5:30pm before church, which was tough as high school kids just getting out of school. So to do what I thought was a way to “reward” us for making the sacrifice of coming out early, my youth pastor said he’d buy us all Taco Bell.  The only condition was that we needed to at the church at 5pm if we wanted free taco bell.

Well I didn’t arrive until 5:30pm.  And when I got there, I came in (like a typical teen) expecting to get some food. When I found out the food was gone, I made a big stink that I didn’t get dinner and I probably had some lame excuse for being late too. My youth pastor looked me right in the face and told me, “Phil, you can’t be late and expect to get taco bell!”

That day was the moment I learned some huge principles in leadership.

1. Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. As a leader, my actions set the precedent of what “on time” means. If for me, being on time means 5 minutes late in reality, then whenever I say, “Be there by so and so” people will always feel that what I’m really saying is “be there at ‘so and so’ but if you’re 5 minutes late, it’s cool.”
2. The reward for doing what you’re supposed to do is the doing. Too many times you can place your hopes in the result of your “doing” as a reward, when the “doing” is the reward. If we as leaders can begin by seeing that being a leader is a reward that God has given, then it will take the focus off of us, because leadership is not about you, it’s about others.
3. People are watching. Leadership is about influencing others. That night I learned that acting out of selfishness caused a diminishing effect on my leadership status in front of those who I was leading. Yes I was hungry, but as a leader, there is a fine line between “keeping it real” and understanding that my actions can hurt my ability to influence others. (1 Corinthians 9:11-23)
4. Keep the main thing the main thing. Taco bell was a reward for coming to worship practice, but I as a leader did not accept the position to get taco bell. I wanted to be used by God to lead people into real encounters with a living God. If I was focused on that, then I would have thought with my head instead of my stomach.

Worship in a Flannel Shirt

It was the 90′s.  I was introduced to green day, nirvana and flannel shirts.  I even got that haircut where you let the top grow long so you could pull it back in a pony tail, but had the lower half shaved.  If you grew up in the 90′s you know what I’m talking about.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it…it was scary!

But somewhere in the 90′s I was also introduced to an album series called “Winds of Worship”.  (Did I really just say album?  lol…I meant CD, even though it really was a cassette tape!)

I was reminded of this album because last night – at our worship arts meeting – someone asked me to give one of my biggest Christian music influences.  Right off the bat I remembered a guy named Andy Park singing, “The River of God sets my feet a dancing…” and so I threw out his name.

Then I started reminiscing…

Growing up in a church that only had an organ, a piano, and a “almost” in tune violin player, I remember vineyard worship being a breath of fresh air.  Compared to the hymns with lyrics I didn’t understand (and some with theology that I now know is questionable) singing “Light the Fire Again” with Brian Doerksen’s raspy voice somehow connected with me.

And so last night I was remembering what it was like to worship in a flannel shirt…

and I liked it =)

Day One

Today was Day One

ok…it was “technically” Day 3, if you count this week’s days in the office.  None-the-less, today was the first Sunday for me at Maple Grove Evangelical Free Church.  Overall, I think things went as planned.  I’ve been working with Matt on today’s service over the last couple of weeks and he did a great job of running the rehearsals, coordinating and communicating with the volunteers, and just overall being a workhorse!  I know that  and his wife are totally goign to be missed.

Soooo…back to what I was going to share.  Here is the PCO (Plannign Center Online) order of service:
June 14th, 2009

It’s still too early to give out any type of real evaluation, but I can tell you that my guitar fell off the guitar stand in second service in the beginning of announcements.  I’m not one who gets embarrassed easily, so it was not a real big deal for me, but when I had to put on the guitar again for the beginning of the offertory special, I didn’t think that the 3 foot drop the headstock took just might give me a reason to check the tuning on the guitar ;P

Needless to say, I had to tune on the fly, which made it a little awkward for me, but hopefully I wasn’t too much a distraction.  I’m sure someone will bring up the guitar thing at our Worship Arts meeting this Tuesday. Maybe next time I’ll lead from the piano.  But then I might fall off the chair if Murphey’s Law tends to stick around for me.

Let’s hope I don’t end up like this guy: