New Beginnings

A letter to the youth worship team of Grace Fellowship:

I am very excited and feel very blessed to have the opportunity to worship with you. I so much appreciate the warm response and welcoming attitude you have already shown me. Helping create an environment that leads others into the presence of God is a high calling. I want to say from the beginning that while we are musicians, and I LOVE music, we need to remember that music is merely the gift we share that is being used to facilitate worship. Worship of our holy, almighty, living God is always the focus, and Jesus alone is the reason we even have the privilege of taking part in worship. When we play, remember that our goal is to worship God. We will practice to ensure our playing is skillful, but on stage we need to open up, let go of ourselves and let the Holy Spirit work.

Again, I am very excited to get the opportunity to worship with you all, and I am excited to see how God is going to use us to open up the hearts of the youth of Grace Fellowship to receive his Word.

For starters (we should always start with the Word), one of my favorite Psalms and a great Biblical perspective on worship:

Psalm 98 (NIV)

A song of joy and victory. Because God is victorious over evil, all those who follow him will be victorious with him when he judges the earth.

1 Sing to the LORD a new song,

for he has done marvelous things;

his right hand and his holy arm

have worked salvation for him.

2 The LORD has made his salvation known 
 and revealed his righteousness to the nations.

3 He has remembered his love 
 and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; 
 all the ends of the earth have seen 
 the salvation of our God.

4 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, 
 burst into jubilant song with music;

5 make music to the LORD with the harp, 
 with the harp and the sound of singing,

6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn— 
 shout for joy before the LORD, the King.

7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it, 
 the world, and all who live in it.

8 Let the rivers clap their hands, 
 Let the mountains sing together for joy;

9 let them sing before the LORD, 
 for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness 
 and the peoples with equity.

I have been praying for all of you, and I encourage you to pray for one another. I have experienced the truth of James 5:16 in that prayer is powerful and gives power. We must hold each other up in prayer in order to maintain a lifestyle of worship that is required to be able to show up after a hard day at school on Wednesday, step on stage, and truly connect with God.

I also would like you guys to check out a few articles by Paul Baloche that are linked below. He is a veteran worship leader and I think it helps to get different perspectives from other people who do what we do. Here are few short articles about planning a worship set, music and worship and how worship is more than just music.

http://www.leadworship.com/resources/Flow-1.html

http://www.leadworship.com/resources/RevealingTheDivine.html

http://www2.focusonthefamily.com/focusmagazine/christianliving/A000001117.cfm

God Bless and see you all soon!

Will