Winds of Change

As I’m sure some of you have noticed, blog postings have become much more sparse in recent weeks. Sometimes there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that can’t be shared in such a public forum, but here they are.

When we moved to Nashville to help launch UC, we knew that this assignment from the Lord was a short-term assignment. We expected about two years, but the Lord has seen fit to take us a different direction. About 8 weeks ago we began praying about our place within the leadership of UC. Something just didn’t “seem” right for us, and our only response was to pray. As time wore on, all of the emotions and reasoning were about more than either one of us could bear – so we did the thing we should have done from the beginning of the process and just listened to the Lord. His response to our prayers was that it was time for us to go.

Let me stop here immediately and let everyone know that we are on great terms with the staff of UpRising Church. No arguments, no anger, no bitterness. Some folks will believe what they want to, but we’re all in great standings with each other and love each other a lot. We received an amazing send-off today, but more will come on that later.

We’re at a holding spot I had hoped we would never be in. It’s so much easier when the Lord reveals exactly where He wants you to be. Today, it’s a matter of where we’re not supposed to be. That’s tough. Although UpRising is not our “baby,” we left everything we knew and grew up with to move to Nashvegas to help launch UC. All we know is that we’re taking this time to dedicate our extra time to fasting, prayer, spiritual growth, and serving. We’ve had some churches put some stuff out on the table, but we haven’t heard from the Lord that any one of these is right – at least not yet – so for today, we take our time and prepare for whatever God has waiting for us in the next season of our lives.

We’re remaining in Nashville and we’re going to start visiting churches in upcoming weeks (whenever we’re actually back in town). We don’t believe it’s time for us to leave yet – though everything inside of us wants to run home. We’ll find a place and get involved and serve until we hear a time when God gives us direction to be a “staff member.”

This morning’s music was awesome. We rocked it hard, had a great time, and ended on Bless the Lord with our typical good time. The new worship pastor, Dave Sims, led two songs today and did a great job (more on that later). Following a great service, we had a Sunday night service (our first ever). During the service, Pastor Joe ordained me and 4 other men from our church body. It was UC’s chance to “send” us to whatever our next assignment is. I cannot say enough thanks to the staff of UC – especially Joe and Pam. We had a great time tonight, and the support from the church is overwhelming!

It was also announced that Dave Sims, who has sung backup and played bass in recent months, will be taking over as Worship Pastor for UC. That’s incredibly exciting. I don’t know that there’s anybody else in the world I’d rather turn things over to. This guy knows he’s called to pastor, is passionate about doing it right, and is an amazing musician. Guitar, Bass, Keys, Vocals – this guy can do it. He’s run sound for us on multiple occasions, but plays bass most of the time. Over and above all that – we call the Sims’ our friends. We’re so excited for them as they begin this journey.

All that said – I can’t believe what an amazing year it’s been – full of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t take back a minute of it. We have been challenged and encouraged in amazing ways – each one pushing us to grow more and more.

I’ll post more tomorrow, but that’s all I’ve got for now. Continue to follow this transition here for now, and I’ll have more info about my blog later this week.

Mouthful, huh?

mjd

 

Throwing Stones

I am absolutely opposed to being critical of other ministries and churches on my blog – but after watching the news this evening, I am PISSED about what I see happening within the leadership of the Christian right. I refuse to endorse any politician on this site for a couple of reasons, one of them being the ramifications on the church’s non-profit organization status. I will not endorse a candidate, but I will say that I am incredibly disappointed in Pat Robertson’s endorsement of a pro-abortion candidate today, saying that homeland security was the reason he threw support by Guliani. I believe this move is a clear sign of endorsing a candidate who is already popular, instead of throwing support behind a candidate who stands for those things the Word emphasizes as important.

I am not a narrow-minded Christian who views all of the world through the view of abortion, homosexuality and religious rights, but I cannot move into stewardship of our environment, changes to the tax system, education, and spending because I believe that issues like abortion are not issues of which way is best – they’re items we cannot back down because there is NO justice in their continued practice. Yes, we must stand up for the poor (though it’s not the govts job to take care of the poor) and we must stand up for the environment, and we must stand up for fair taxing, but these items MUST take a back seat to a matter of life and death. While I’m sure that we would all like to see the Iraqi war end soon, more babies were killed in our Nation today in abortion than all of the American soldier’s have died in the entirety of the Iraq War, and more babies will die this year in the US alone than all of the deaths associated with the Iraqi war thus far.

It is not always popular to stand for the Word – but we’ll all stand accountable for how we voted some day…

mjd

 

Nathan Lee Rocks

Went to the Nathan Lee show tonight at the Rutledge. That guy flippin’ rocks. It was supposed to be last show, but it turns out he’s going to start doing his shows on Sunday evenings – for free. This guys lyrics are not always clean, but they’re always gut level honest. Here’s a post from his most recent myspace post:

I have come to learn in the past year, that it takes a whole lotta’ faith, and a whole lotta’ prayer to know how to move on from one season to the next. I no longer have any reasons to hide who I am in this life, or where I am in this Journey of music. I can no longer find a reason to hide my faith for what might look to be the better decision, based on industry standards or industry opinions. We have come to a crossroads. Playing these shows at The Rutledge has never been a business decision for us. Every one of these shows has been a matter of the heart. I often wish I could be doing everything I do, solely based on business decisions. That’s not exactly how my life has turned out. My life…is becoming the outcome to prayer. As you may have learned before I…Prayer doesn’t always lead you into what others would call a popular business decision. The boys and I have played these shows because we know it is what we’ve been called to do…

His music is raw and emotional – I’m glad to say that there’s somebody like Dave Sims (also our bass player) out in the music scene of Nashville continually trying to represent a picture of Christ. We must continue to live our lives with holiness central – however, that doesn’t require that we remove ourselves from the world. We don’t need to be “of” the world, but we must realize that we are “in” the world. What impact could we have if we loved people for people and expressed our passion for Christ in their environment. You’ve got to love when a band packs out a venue with believers and unbelievers and the words of Solomon start the show…good times…

mjd

 

Ever feel like staying in bed?

Just because you’re on the stage doesn’t mean you don’t struggle with the same emotions…it just means you have commitments that require you to get out of bed and be at church no matter how you feel. I really appreciate Joel’s honesty about how he felt this weekend. What about you?

mjd

 

Built on Sand?

This week the words to describe how I feel would look like this: overwhelmed, irritated, flustered, defeated, distracted…

We had lunch with friends today and they gave very wise counsel…quit acting like your life is built on sand.

Matthew 7:24″Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

This ministry is built on the rock. Small groups are built on the rock. My life has been built on the rock – so I need to quit acting like it’s been built on the sand. They sky’s not falling, God’s still on His throne, and even on the most overwhelming days, His plans for me are better than the best thing I can put together.

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand…

mjd

 

What’s Your Sweet Spot?

I heard Andy Stanley give a talk on finding your “sweet spot” about 5 years ago at a C3 conference…that talk comes back to my mind on a regular basis… Here’s what’s going through my head now, some of this is his, some of these things are my thoughts.

Life doesn’t always afford us the opportunity to work in our sweet spot, but I’ve found in my short life that my greatest hindrance to operating in my sweet spot is my fear of letting go of things that aren’t in my sweet spot. I’m amazed by the people God has surrounded us with at UC. The attitude (servant’s heart) and skill levels of these people astound me. If you’ve read Pastor Joe’s blog recently, you know he’s trying to “let go” of things right now and release other areas to people who can take it farther. I’m in turn trying to do the same thing.

It’s amazing that the areas of ministry I’m responsible for at UC are already too much for me to handle. (By handle – I mean that natural feeling I have that I need to control things.) Most importantly, if I try to maintain control of these items – I’m going to completely miss my two sweet spots – leading worship, and pastoring people. In the past, leading worship has always meant arranging music/selecting music, working rehearsals, working transitions, creative team involvement, scheduling musicians, setting up equipment, etc. Chel and I are really looking for “the” person to turn this over to at UC. I can’t tell you how hard it is to imagine my life without that, but if I can free myself from those administrative details – I can spend more time with people. With the other areas we’re responsible for, we’ve got people who know 10x more than we know – my involvement only confuses getting things done.

So what about you? Are you serving where you fit best? Are you holding onto things and causing life to be difficult for others? Are you using the gifts God’s given you?

 

There Must Be More Now…

If you serve in a church, you should find times to get away and be ministered to. Don’t go to study signage, song selection, message presentation, and lighting – go to be ministered to. We had that chance tonight. One of our favorite worship leaders is Jonathan Stockstill from Bethany World Prayer Center. He was at a local church tonight, so Chel and I took the time to just go and worship. We didn’t study progressions and transitions, we just went to meet with God.

Jonathan did one of my favorite songs and I went through a reminder of some things in my personal spiritual life. The line says, “there must be more now Father, rain down, rain down) I tend to easily become a Martha – running around serving, administering, organizing, and fail to sit at the feet of the master. Sure I pray and read the Word, but you know the difference – when you sit at His feet, adore Him, and receive today’s manna so you can make it. It’s amazing to me how quickly I’ll begin to depend on my experience (and I don’t have that much) or head-knowledge to make decisions that have serious spiritual ramifications.

At one stage in my career, I began to pray for revelations about how to build databases and God would give me the solutions in my sleep and give me revelation about how to make processes more effective. I had a 5-year plan to save $5M in my department that was completely His plan. I’m not a mystic – I just had an amazing mentor who taught me to seek the Lord for work like I do for ministry. If God’s interested in giving me revelation about those items – then God has revelation he wants to bring about set lists, transitions, and progressions. I’ve become incredibly dependent on myself for everything about my ministry. I had forgotten to desire more of Him in everything I do. My how quickly we become business managers instead of spiritual leaders and pastors.

mjd

 

Dealing with Adversity

We closed one chapter of UC today with our final service in the YMCA gym. Some of you might have read my last cry for help, here’s the grand total of things that happened:

1. Dave A. was out of town so I had to schedule a bass player. The player I thought was going to play let me know on Wednesday he was unavailable. I found a guy online by Friday evening. Bill jumped in today and did a great job. Following me with only 36 hours to learn 4 songs can be a challenge – but he pulled through like a champ.

2. Kate (alto) had to leave with a migraine about 10 minutes into practice. She cried because she was worried about me being stressed. I picked up some harmonies and turned almost the entirety of the lead over to Beth (God, thanks for giving Beth pipes and a servant’s heart).

3. We still haven’t filled out electric guitar spot. I’ve got a guy locked in for next weekend and the weekend after, and I thought I had one for this weekend, but that didn’t happen – so my wife jumped in and rocked out on King of Majesty and Revelation Song (holy crap she did a great job). She’s really strong on acoustic and more comfortable there, but our motto is that it’s not about us – so making her a little uncomfortable so that we could accomplish what we needed was important (I’ll explain how we both had to do this in pt. 4). Zach (also our sound engineer) jumped in and a ton of body to Holy Moment. This song rocked this weekend – thanks to Zach and Chel for being incredible.

4. Will, our keys player, got sick, so I had to cover on keys. I’ve only been playing for two years, and I do block chords only, so it was rough on me to say the least. I didn’t find out till 15 minutes into rehearsal that he wasn’t going to be there. I usually practice TONS on anything I’m going to play on – especially if I’m singing as well.

All that said, I think we had an incredibly strong week. You know, not saying all that, I think we still had an incredibly good week and we continued with the signature sound of UC. I was incredibly stressed around 7:15, but the Lord reminded me that was sin. I left the band for about 5 minutes, met with the Lord and we talked it over. I already had everything I needed in the room to make it that morning – I dropped stress and picked up trust – how relieving.

I think I cried twice today as I was overwhelmed by the amazing team of people God put around me at UC. These folks serve WITH me. We do it all for Him and they enjoy every minute of it. Flexibility is the name of the game at UC – and these folks dominate at this game. To Chelsea, Bill, Joey, Beth, Zach, Lincoln, and Freddy – THANK YOU! For those of you who step in all of the time to fill in the gaps – THANK YOU! God has assembled us with purpose – and we rock out.

We had at least 4 or 5 first time guests (families) this morning and each one of them mentioned to me how much they enjoyed the music and a couple of them said we “rocked.” Thank you God for giving me such an amazing team!

mjd