Sunday’s Setlist – 07/31/11

Springs Calvary – Sunday, July 31st

Amazing God by Brenton Brown
A great song to begin worship.  Really sets the tone. 

Jesus Messiah by Daniel Carson, Ed Cash, Jesse Reeves, and Chris Tomlin
Simple songs are the best songs. 

We Crown You by Steve Fee and Eddie Kirkland
“for the blood that’s washed me pure…for my sin and shame no more…” 

***Offering***

Yahweh by Jon Egan and Ross Parsley
The chorus in this song is very worshipful. 

Our God by Jonas Myrin, Matt Redman, Jesse Reeves, and Chris Tomlin
If our God is for us, then who can be against us?  Something every Christian needs to sing. 

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What about you?  What are you singing this weekend?

Forgiveness – Who, Me?

I’ve honestly never had a huge problem with forgiveness.  I suppose it’s mainly because I’ve never been in a position where I was sinned against in a major way.  And for that, I’m very grateful.

I know that for others, this issue can be and is often a very real and very painful reality of the Christian faith.  This blog post is in no way trying to diminish that – in fact, I think you’ll soon see that we all deal with this issue on different levels.

Lately I’ve been considering that maybe I have held onto things.  Perhaps I’m not as “holy” in this area as I thought.  Perhaps I need to learn this lesson of forgiveness myself.  Let me explain…

A while back I felt a friend had made a decision to warrant me being upset at him.  I know he didn’t feel he had done anything wrong, but in my mind, I just KNEW he had.  I couldn’t believe he could be so blind and not see what he was doing.  In fact, it affected many others – not just me.

So what did I do?  Well I did what a friend should, of course – I told him he was wrong!  However, as I reflect, I don’t think I told him that it actually hurt me.  In fact, I don’t even think I realized how much it DID hurt me.  I just kept my sharing limited to how it affected everyone else.

In retrospect, I think that in “championing the cause of others,” I was able to mask my unforgiveness.  After all, wasn’t I there on behalf of the other people that didn’t have as privileged a place in my friend’s life to voice their pain to him?  He needed to know how they felt, right?!

So I met him for lunch and told him.  He listened and politely stated his case.  He, too, was saddened that I felt the way I did, but it didn’t change his decision.  In his mind, he was doing what was best for his family.  In the end, we agreed to disagree and went our separate ways.

After that initial (three hour) exchange, our relationship wasn’t the same.  We’d comment on each other’s Facebook accounts and occasionally chat or e-mail, but the frequency was less and less.  I found myself trying to find other avenues when I had a question that my friend could have easily answered.  I even found myself resenting him when I encountered an issue he could have helped me with.

And that leads me to today.  I realize now that I haven’t forgiven him.  I haven’t let him “off the hook” for “what he did to me.”  I’m just content to subtly punish him with my ninja-like passive aggressive skills.

Wow.  And here I thought I was good in this area.  Time to look in the mirror a bit deeper, I guess.

And call my friend to schedule another lunch.

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What about you?  Anybody you need to call and get together with?

Sunday’s Setlist – 07/24/11

So I think I’ll type out a few thoughts about my setlist.  It could potentially help me as I think through tomorrow’s service.  Who knows – maybe it’ll become something I do each week!

Springs Calvary – Sunday, July 24th

Bless His Name by Tony Sanchez
A great call to worship song we’ve been doing at Springs Calvary for years.  I brought this song from Wichita with me and it’s stood the test of time.

Day After Day by Jason Ingram and Kristian Stanfill
Absolutely love this song.  It’s probably about a month since we’ve intro’d it and it’s caught on very fast.  The bridge really moves me.

Mighty To Save by Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan
Pretty easy to know why we’re doing this song.  A home run every time we play it.  The cool thing this week is that it will come right after a baptism (which is happening during the worship time – appropriate IMO.)

***Offering***
I’ve seen offering happen in all sorts of places during our worship services.  At Springs Calvary, we’ve chosen to include it as part of our worship.  Might interrupt the “musical” flow, but I think it fits in with the “worship” flow quite well.

O Come All Ye Faithful by C. Frederick Oakeley and John Francis Wade
We’ll only be doing the chorus of this song, which is a fabulous worship song no matter what the time of year.  In addition, we’ll use the alternate choruses “For You alone are worthy” and “We give You all the glory.”

Always by Jason Ingram and Kristian Stanfill
If it seems I’m on a Stanfill kick, well I am.  I intro’s this last week and it seems our church is really benefiting from being reminded of the faithfulness of our God – even in difficult times.

Happy Day by Ben Cantelon and Tim Hughes
A great way to wrap up a wonderful worship expression.  Declaring the fact that this is, indeed, a happy day simply because of what Jesus has done for us.

So what about you?  What’s your weekend set?  How do the songs help your particular congregation worship?  Post a comment and share!

Worship Songs

As a young worship leader, I didn’t really have the benefit of sitting under a more seasoned worship leader’s tutelage for any length of time.  As a result, I’ve had to learn many of my lessons the hard way.  God has an incredibly gentle hand, though, and has guided me to a greater understanding of many things pertaining to worship.  That’s not to say I’ve got it all figured out, but I’ve grown significantly over the years.

One example of God’s gentle teaching has been an experience early on after moving to Colorado Springs and my current church, Springs Calvary.  When I first moved, I was challenged by the pastor to begin picking songs that focused more on God than on myself.  At first, I didn’t understand what he was asking.  In fact, I was struggling with being offended that he didn’t trust me to pick the songs.  After all, didn’t he hire me to do that?  (Can you say “pride?”)  Believe it or not, I had never really thought about the worship songs I picked each week in that way.  My thinking was that if people could express their heart to God, it didn’t matter – expression was the goal.

Looking back, I was half right.

I still desire for the people I lead in worship to express their hearts to God – that’s a no-brainer.  But the way in which they go about that expression is where I’ve come to understand what my pastor was pushing for.  It’s subtle, yes.  And many of you already know where I’m going with this.  But I think it’s of great importance to all worshippers, not just leaders.

So in dutiful obedience to my pastor, I went to work examining my repertoire.  When I looked at all the songs I used at my previous church, I noticed that over 70% of the songs were focused on me and my response to God.  In fact, 18 of those songs started with the word, “I.”  “I Love You, Lord,” “I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever,” and “I Will Worship” are just a few.  Great songs, for sure, but as I realized how “me centered” my worship was, I was humbled.  I had never taken the time to examine my motives and it would seem by the evidence of this list of songs that I valued expressing how I felt about Him more than I valued expressing Him only.

Now there’s obviously a place for those songs and for expressing where we’re at in response to His majesty.  In fact, I still do some of them occasionally.  The conviction for me came from the fact that I hadn’t even considered it.  I had been missing the other side of expression – WHO HE IS.

That has lead to a much fuller expression of true worship here at Springs Calvary.  Not that one song is better than another, but now that I am aware of the subtle differences, I can pick songs that our congregation needs to sing and do a better job expressing the fullness of worshipping the King.  In my opinion, this is a main component of a worship leader’s job.

The end result of this post shouldn’t be a defensive posture or a feeling of guilt.  I would hope it would cause us all to examine not only the songs we sing and the focus of said songs, but to examine our hearts in regards to worship.  Do my prayers center around me or Him?  Am I typically asking or thanking?  Do I “tell Him” or “praise Him?”

The goal is more than expression of our hearts and where we’re at – the goal is to worship Him for who He is.

(Well duh, Travis…that’s why it’s called worship.)

Yeah.  Well, OK then.

Frustration

There are certainly a lot of things we can be frustrated with in this life.   There’s that idiot driver that cuts me off.  There’s the waiter that hates his job and makes sure I know it.  There’s the government, the public school system and the U.S. postal service.  All of these things can be really frustrating.  And I think we’ve all got plenty more examples we could share.

But are these things the source of our frustration?

Our immediate answer, of course, is yes.  If that guy hadn’t been driving in such an idiotic way, then my blood pressure wouldn’t have risen to heart attack levels as I imagined his car driving off the road and smashing into a tree.  It’s HIS fault I feel this way.

But is it?

Did he hold a gun to your head and tell you to get angry?  Did he force you to think about his untimely (albeit morbidly pleasing) demise?  Well the answer is, of course, no.

But we don’t like that answer.  That answer causes us to turn the spotlight inward.

Patience is a virtue.  Longsuffering is a fruit of the Spirit.  Graciousness is learned over time.  Oh, brother…you really had to pull the God card, Travis?  Well then here’s an easy one – frustration is an emotion.  Pure and simple.

So obvious truth here is that our emotions follow where our mind is headed.  Case in point: the scary movie.  We know there’s a person about to jump out and scare us (cue creepy music) and we know that person is just an actor and that we’re sitting safe and sound inside a movie theatre, but we allow our minds to be immersed into the story.  So when said bad guy says, “boo,” we say “ahh!”  Our emotions follow where our mind leads us.

So what’s the answer then?  We need to focus our mind on things that will allow our emotions to go to a “good” place.

Col 3:2
Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

So the next time you’re behind the guy that actually stops in the merge lane, try thinking about heaven.  Try thinking about how amazing it will be to one day stand before the presence of the Holy One.  Then take that time to worship and praise Him.

I guarantee you won’t be merging in frustration.

Worship – What Is It?

Note from Travis: I plan to write more on this topic since it’s so close to my heart.  Feel free to leave a comment or forward this to somebody it could help.
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From Merriam-Webster:

wor·ship (noun)

1. : a person of importance —used as a title for various officials (as magistrates and some mayors)
2. : reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also an act of expressing such reverence
3. : a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual
4. : extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem

Worship is something we all can relate to in one way or another.  It’s something we understand at the core of our being.  To be a worshipper is to live on the planet earth.  All of us worship something or someone – we can’t help it.

For some who deem spiritual things as trite and useless, worship connotes religion.  A dry, archaic practice that somehow manages to live on in the modern world.  (If that’s all it is, I’m with you!)  But is that all it is?  Can you simply write off the concept because it’s been associated with a God you may or may not believe in?  I’ve already told you that you, too, are a worshipper…read on.

For others, worship describes not a duty, but a free-willed expression of a reciprocal love (more on that concept in a later post.)  And this love is expressed within the beauty of relationship.  To these people, worship is simply a response to a love that so sweet and pure that there is no other option but to worship.  This love that they receive actually produces an adoration that needs to be expressed.

Sign me up for number 2.

Regardless which camp you reside in, worship begins inside you and works itself out into the world.  It begins with a state of mind – a decision – and plays itself out with an action.  We worship money when we decide to buy things we can’t afford on credit.  We worship our work when we put it ahead of our families.  We worship our relationships when we choose to engage in unhealthy patterns so as to not “rock the boat.”  We worship ourselves when we rationalize reasons to deceive others “for their own good.”  In the end it’s all self manipulation.  We want what we want and we want it how we want it.  (Say that ten times really fast!)  In our minds, we tell ourselves that we deserve our rationalizations and excuses.  But it leaves us empty at the end of the day – there’s no substance to that kind of worship.  We need more.

There is only one type of worship that satisfies the soul – the worship of the one true God.

Psalm 8:3-4
³ When I consider your heavens, 
   the work of your fingers, 
the moon and the stars, 
   which you have set in place, 
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them, 
   human beings that you care for them?

There is substance behind this worship. The God of this universe decided to love me.  There was no benefit to him at all, but he chose to love me.  There is something to that kind of love that I will never understand this side of heaven.  The state of being loved to that degree creates a passion inside me that cannot be contained.  It must express itself.

And that expression is worship.

The Future

The future.  Are these words scary or are they exciting?  Perhaps a mixture of both?  Different reactions at different times, I suppose.  Recently I’ve discovered a truth that I believe can revolutionize the way I think of my future.  Ready?  Here it comes…

Whenever we think about the future in the way it relates to our past, it can create fear in us.  This is evidenced in a job loss, career change, family death, etc.  However, when we allow ourselves to dream about what “could be” without the limitations of our education, work experience, past wounding, etc, it causes a different emotion – hope.

This idea has changed the way I think about the future.  I’m beginning to see how true this thought is especially as I’ve been walking through a season of change in my life.  (Nothing major, mind you, just things beginning to move in directions I had not previously considered a possibility.)

It causes you to ask different questions.  Instead of asking “what skills do I have that will help me move forward in life,” I ask “what skills would I need if I did x or y.”  The first question focuses on how my past will influence my future, the second gives me permission to dream bigger than my past limitations.

Of course I am not diminishing the skills I’ve picked up along the way, I just don’t want to be limited by them.  In fact, the more I dream about the future, the more I see how it ties to the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done.

So here’s the question of the day that we’re all either too afraid or too busy to ask:

How would your future look if you didn’t let fear affect you?

Got Salt?

“You are the salt of the earth.” We’ve heard it before in sermons, we’ve talked about it in small groups, but how salty are we? Have we, the church, relegated the “spiritual duties” to clergy or are we willing to take on the call to be equipped for the work of the ministry?

I believe each person performs up to the standard that is expected. And if we have not set the bar high enough, we lose focus and eventually walk into destructive patterns. Case in point, my ten-year old. This AM he came upstairs and began making breakfast, but not before arguing and belittling anyone who got in his way – namely, his siblings. I soon asked him to come upstairs to the computer because I had a job I wanted him to do. I took the time to show him how the process went and that I needed him to finish the job that afternoon. Afterwards he was a different boy. After some reflection, I realized why that was – he had purpose. He needs to feel that he’s important or he loses focus and begins hurting others. Not because he’s a mean little boy, but because he loses his way. It’s not that he doesn’t know the routine – he’s got plenty to do. But he needs a constant reminder that what he’s called to is important and that it will matter.

Is that what’s happened to the church? Have we so lost our saltiness that we’ve lost our way? Are we walking in a way that leads to destructive patterns simply because nobody has reminded us recently that we, yes WE, can be a part of the redemptive story happening around us each and every day? It’s not up to the pastor and ministry leaders to befriend the guy in the cubicle next to mine or the cashier at Wal-Mart – it’s up to ME.

Jesus didn’t say “you will be the salt of the earth.” He said “you are.” God has uniquely gifted each one of us in such a way that we can affect the world around us. The bottom line is that we are salt. But are we salty?

So what’s your gift? Where’s your “in” with the culture. How can you be “saltier” in your sphere of influence. Even though I am a pastor, I share in this call. I, too, have asked these questions and am beginning to see openings to share, ask and listen. Join with me in asking God to become more salty and watch what happens as God open our eyes to what He’s already doing around us every day.

What have you feared that turned out to be much easier than you expected?

If we’re honest, we’ll admit that this is an excellent question.  One we should ask more often.  The fact is that fear constantly stops us.  It stops us from achieving our dreams.  It stops us from asking the question.  It stops us from trying that new technique. It stops us from trying, from fighting, from pressing in when things are pressing back.  In the end, fear wants to stop us from being everything we were created to be.

So as a source of encouragement to yourself and others, answer this question:

What have you feared that turned out to be much easier than you expected?.

The reality is that once we’re on the other side of the thing we once feared and we see it for what it really is, it’s inevitably easier than we thought it would be.  Isn’t it?