worship confessional (9.14.08) - from the road

Hey all... wow, what a week! This is sort of a strange confessional, as it comes from a string of small shows/services I did this week. My week started early on Saturday as I headed out to New Life Fellowship church in Topeka, IN. It's about 7 hours from my house in St. Charles, MO. I, of course, forgot about the 1 hour time difference and did my best to make some time up on the road. The first four hours went by extremely quickly as I listened to the audiobook version of a book I got from Thomas Nelson Publishing at re:create last year. The book is called The Same Kind of Different As Me and is truly inspiring and thought-provoking. What really gets you is when you're done with the book and you take a second look at the authors' names.

Anyway... I headed to the church, not arriving until just after 8pm their time, and we waited for the drummer to arrive so we could rehearse. It's always crazy leading worship with someone else's band entirely, but it was a cool experience as usual. Rehearsal lasted a while, made for an early morning, but all in all... let's just say that God showed up. Very cool. Setlist for the morning:

As Long As I Have You
Blessed Be Your Name (Redmans)
Beautiful One (Hughes)
The Least I Can Do
You Are

Then, after the morning service was over, the pastor told me that the parent church of NLF, called Nappanee Missionary Church, would love it if I'd play for their young adult service that night if I wasn't busy... all I had planned to do was head to Bethel and chill before the morning chapel I was to lead on Monday, so I obliged. It was very cool, had a great cup of coffee, sat and listened to the message... the music was set to end the service. I hadn't planned it, but from how the message wrapped up, I really felt like we needed to sing 'From the Inside Out' so I asked their presentation software guy if he had it in their system. I kinda sang it with my back to them half the time, 'cause I didn't have the words memorized, but it was very cool 'cause it was just the right song to sing right then.

The next morning I lead worship for the Monday morning Chapel service at Bethel College... they were uber flexible with what I wanted to do, so I just sang some songs, told a few stories and encouraged authentic worship in the room. They definitely are worshipers there, their voices were passionate and voluminous even while singing songs they weren't so familiar with. Of course, I try not to get discouraged by lack of participation--I know that God is able to move in enthusiastic and subdued congregations alike--but it sure is nice to hear His people praising Him alongside you...