13 Days!

So I haven't written anything here on my blog for 13 days now.

Oh well.

I have now though.

Unmet Expectations Part 2

When you walk into the main auditorium of a church, what do you expect to see? Lights, sound, and video? Well, what you don't see is that same room at 6:00 in the morning.

When we walk into the theater that we meet in, it is completely empty. There is nothing in that room except seats. So everything that you see when you come to our service at Sojourn is set up that morning. Everything from the sound, lights, stage, video, everything. It may not look like a lot to you, but it sure does to me!

One of the hardest things to deal with when you bring in all of your own equipment and set it all up in just a couple of hours if getting it all to work properly. And that is the first expectation I have when I walk into our theater on Sunday.

I expect all of the equipment to work right.

I really do. And you'd think that after working in the audio/visual department of a church for years, I would expect things to mess up rather than work. But alas, here I am wanting things to do what they should. I just think that if we set it up the same way we did last week, then everything should work the same. Only that never happens. there's always a new buzz in the speakers. There's always another cable that goes out. There's always another wire that's missing. It never fails. And I know this doesn't only happen in church plants. I've been on staff at 2 other churches before, both of which had their own buildings, and the same stuff happened then.

I think a big part of it for me is that I just don't want to have to worry about that kind of stuff on Sunday. I guess I've been spoiled at the last 2 churches I've worked at. At both of them, I was the guy who dealt with all of the audio/visual mishaps. All the while the worship leader had no idea that any of it was happening. He didn't even get there till about 2 hours after I did. So maybe I expected the same thing to happen for me once I became a worship leader. Well, I don't really think so.

Either way, the first expectation that I have going into a Sunday is that everything will work right. So far, I haven't had that expectation met a single time!

Unmet Expectations Part 1

We all have them. We all give in to them. We all kind of like them.

Expectations.

I know expectations are a hard thing to keep in check. Expectations are all around us. Expectations of what others think we're supposed to do, and what we expect others to do. This is something that, to be honest, the church struggles with a lot. And what's really hard is meeting the expectations of every one that comes through our doors during the weekend.

People come in with some crazy expectations. They expect the coffee to be hot, and the donuts to be extra powdery. They expect to have some one shake their hand, but not too many people. They expect to be given a "bulletin" to take notes on. They expect the music to be perfect and the singer to hit every not perfectly(That will never be me!). They expect the preacher to give the best sermon he's ever given, and they expect that every single weekend!

But there's some expectations that the church leaders themselves have. I know I sure have a lot of them. And trust me, it can ruin my morning if my expectations aren't met just like anyone else who walks into the doors of the church.

So I've decided that I'm going to share some of the expectations I have as a worship leader. These are things that go on behind the scenes that probably no one who just attends the church knows about. Thinking about it, this might not be such a good idea, but I've already started so I can't stop.

So this is the first in an unnumbered series of posts of my expectations that I bring to the worship ministry. Good or bad, they are what they are. I'll admit if they're bad or good. I know which ones are good and which ones are bad. Maybe admitting the bad ones will help me get rid of them. We'll just have to wait and see.

So the first, or actually second, post on this will come at you tomorrow, so be ready for it!

Meet the Air Car

That is the Air Car. Pretty cool looking. Definitely looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. This baby can go 35 mph for 60 miles using nothing but air. How cool is that? No emissions, no electricity, and NO GAS!!!

It uses air compression to turn the pistons and recharges the air compressor while your driving. You do have to use a little bit of fuel however, but this fuel can be anything from gas to diesel to ethanol to vegetable oil.

The plans are for this little guy to be manufactured in India at first, since that's where the car makers company, Tata, is based. But it's expected that this car will start being produced in the US around 2011, and for $20,000, not a high price compared to hybrids.

Crash tests are still pending, obviously!

Better than I thought

Here it is Sunday night. I was just sitting here thinking about the service this morning at Sojourn. It was really hard for me today. Things didn't work or happen the way I wanted them to, but I'll talk about that later.

Anyways, I was thinking about this morning and all the junk that happened. I thinking about all the things that were going through my mind this morning. I felt terrible walking out of that service this morning. I didn't think God was really worshiped at all. At least I know I had a very hard time worshiping Him. But them I starting just going through the service. I starting thinking about what all went on. Then i remembered something.

I remembered seeing someone worship.

I was so totally distracted this morning that I totally missed it. But now looking back on it, it was so clear. My problem was my guitar started cutting out. So I put it down and just sang, which is really awkward for guys like me in case you didn't know. So I put my guitar down and just sang and clapped. I was thinking in my head how bad it had to sound with my guitar cutting in and out, and how I couldn't hear anything but my voice and had no clue if I was even close to on pitch. I felt like it was so bad that everyone noticed it, and they probably thought it was a joke. But now I remember looking up, and seeing this one particular guy worshiping. Now, he wasn't worshiping like he was raising his hands and singing real loud or anything like that. But he was clapping and he was smiling and he was singing. And that's more than I think I've ever seen him do in during the music.

That made me feel a whole lot batter about today. Like I said, it was a very rough morning, but God was still worshiped despite me being human.