The first day of the worship leader conference is done. It started early this morning with a pre conference seminar called Stewards of Technology. It was a mixed bag of thoughts and presentations. It is true that we should not use every piece of new technology that comes along without asking the questions "is this healthy for our church" and " will this bring people closer to God or become a distraction". Frankly I kept being distracted with thoughts of how i had just seen facebook become a powerful tool in the passing and remembering of a 22 year old man. A powerful tool for sharing stories, relating feelings, helping healing and witnessing to others using this man's life has to be shared with the people of faith communities.
I also get that a tool meant for good can go bad. I kept thinking that somewhere an unfiltered session of "tweet the pastor" during a service, shown LIVE on the screen, has probably turned ugly. I have seen a pastor's blog meant to share thoughts and powerful God stories to show good turn ugly with hate speech. Yeah . . . We need to think through it before we use it. But don't let the negative turn us away from finding the positive.
Matt from Houston agreed to take me to the apple store in kansas city to get a folio for my new iPad. I had been a resister, but after typing on it like a fool during the workshop . . . I love this thing. We also took a spin through the local guitar center. I think it is the same guy that goes from music store to music store cranking the gtr amps up and mindlessly trying to shred like the poor fill-in chef at a japanese steak house, hoping to be discovered in the aisle next the $200 guitars. Oh well.
(shh. . .media shout for mac. We will know more tomorrow. )
A meeting of the top attended methodist churches for contemporary worship was next on the list. It was an honor to be there with people from Granger church, Frazer UMC and Ginghamsburg church. Kim Miller is always fun to be with in meetings. We had some good KC BBQ and then launch into a discussion of designing a Methodist track for the 2011 conference. I kept thinking about the man who came up to me at the last annual conference we played who said that his church barely had 100 members but wanted to start something just like this at his church. But they have limited resources and support. Where should he start? What should be an energizing question can be troubling at the same time. He needs resources, not just iTunes and ccli charts. To hear a room for of music leaders say it's not about music was encouraging. It is not about adding some drums and a backbeat and some electric instruments and saying "hey, now we are contemporary. Everybody stand and sing" As Kim said. . . . It is about the worship and the story. This will be an interesting week with this group.
Phil Wickham opened up the worship set - just him on guitar. And i could feel the collective "oh no" before he started. I have always thought of him as the feature song guy. I was wrong. This guy is a powerful worship leader and his songs are going into our rotation.
Here's a tip . . . At a worship leader seminar with vendors from Shure, Media Shout, lighting companies, etc . . . .have your tech A-team ready to go. The preachers mic not being on. . . that's ok . . . We even see that on american idol. But messy lyrics and abrupt lighting cues and the poor guy's keyboard not being hooked up . . . . Oh well. We all prayed for the tech team . . .after the pastor's mic came on.
The 2nd worship team was from Grace Chapel. They were awesome. A 3 song set of healing music. Loved every song, and had never heard 2 of them. New Songs for the list. Heard a message about the pit and the privilege to be in it. Amen brother.
Keith and Kristyn Getty finished out the evening. A bagpipe joke, an impromptu riverdance and some pretty cool Irish licks made it fun. The highlight for me was a room full of several thousand worship leaders singing In Christ Alone. I called Terri and held up the iPhone so she could experience it with me. Moving.
Day two tomorrow.
Peace
Paul
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