Please read all the way through. Tonight and tomorrow a group of us that work with or volunteer in the adult service and youth service worship teams are headed to Orlando for a worship conference lead by an amazing church from Australia’s worship team. I cannot wait.
First let me preface this whole post by saying that worship is not a day of the week or solely done through music and singing, but that music can be one of the most powerful ways in which we worship and experience God and from that angle I come at this post.
My hopes for the our teams is that we will first experience God through worship tonight and if we cannot nothing else we learn this weekend matters. I tell the youth team all the time you are the “lead worshipers” not a lead vocalists or musician. And if the lead worshipers cannot experience God then how can we lead others to do the same. I hope that we will all walk away with a better understanding of what worship truly is. I hope that we will learn new methods of leading other in worship, ways we have never done before or even thought possible. I hope we will learn ways to engage the lost through worship and help them experience God for the first time. I hope we are challenged and disturbed (in a good way) that we are not doing enough to help people experience, engage and interact with God because of what we are doing through our time of praising God through song and music.
I tell you these things not just to give you a little insight as to what we are doing and ways we equip volunteers for ministry but to get you to start thinking about what are you doing to grow in all that you do.
I am a life long learner. I know that I’m not the end all be all for youth ministry, children’s ministry, church work, people skills, conflict management, volunteer recruiting, equipping and maintaining, of being the best husband and dad, friend and family member (the list could go on and one) but I try all the time to learn better ways of doing the things that I do in my life. Are you? Conferences are one way of learning but so are books and magazines, resources of the web, continued education, talking with experts or just friends that may have experience doing something that you don’t. Be a life long learner, create a plan for learning and work towards being a better _________ (fill in the blank) because of it.
Have a great weekend!
