My home church, Life Connection Church in Phoenix, AZ, is hosting a men’s conference this March 6-7 called Anthropology. We have Ryan Delmore from Vineyard Music and 5 Cities Vineyard coming in to lead us in worship throughout the conference as well as Sunday morning service. And we have Dr. Richard Hanner , professor at CFNI, as our featured guest speaker.

Here is the official conference description.

Anthropology is a gathering of men who desire to walk in maturity, responsibility and authority in Christ. We will confront the tough issues men face, soul ties, sex, addiction, and pornography and encourage and speak God’s truth in fatherhood and restoration. We desire to see men young and old know who God has created them to be and not surrender responsibility, but to be mature men, passionate after Christ, free from sin, bold and mature in their faith, leading their families as Christ intended.

You can get the entire conference schedule here as well as registration info. We also have a Facebook event for Anthropology, so if you aren’t already a fan of the Life Connection Church facebook page, get on it. I hope those of you men in the Phoenix are will come check it out, it’s going to be a blast.

When I recently interviewed Chris Lizotte I asked him about his most positive memorable worship experience, but what wasn’t on the video was I also asked him about his worst or most embarrassing worship experience. Chris couldn’t think of any but bad memories were flooding my mind like church goers to Olive Garden after service. I mean I had so many to choose from it was really quite sad. But one stands out as hands down the absolute worst, most awkward, worship experience I’ve ever been a part of. Thankfully I wasn’t leading it, I just happened to be there.

In December of 2002 my wife and I along with some of our friends went to The Call/The One Thing Conference in Kansas City. Mike Pilavachi was scheduled to speak, I’d never heard him at the time but heard great things(which were all true) and I was really excited to hear Kevin Prosch lead worship. This was Kevin’s return to ministry after his much publicized sexual sin and divorce from his wife. One of the most painful, disappointing, frustrating periods I can remember as Kevin was someone I looked up to as a man of God. You’re probably thinking Kevin’s set was the experience I’m referring to, but you’d be wrong, his was amazing.

Waterdeep was scheduled to open the conference. I had heard a few tunes that I liked from them, didn’t matter though I was just excited to be among thousands of other people eager to praise Jesus. As the time was drawing near for the conference to kick off people were getting more and more impatient. Finally Waterdeep came out, everyone is ready to sing, jump, lift hands, people were pumped!

I don’t recognize the first song, in fact nobody does, it’s not really a worship song. Nobody is singing and everyone is just kind of looking around like, “this is weird“. We all just kind of hum along, still hopeful for some great worship. Song #2 comes along with the same kind of soft, meandering melody that is talking about their college days. What the heck is happening??? Now people are annoyed, I’m annoyed, this is a worship conference for heaven’s sake, probably a good idea to actually play some. Song #3 comes and they introduce it by saying something like, “this is a song we wrote about not having any money and some old car…” The crowd is visibly upset, I’m upset, this feels like a joke, like we’re getting punked. All of a sudden people in the front rows start yelling at the band, “PLAY WORSHIP!!!“. Lead singer of Waterdeep yells back in the mic, “THIS IS WORSHIP!!!” Oh nooo.

Now I have retarded tingles all over and I want to hide, I can’t look anyone in the face. There is a worship mutiny taking place, people are booing, there’s a full out revolt in the conference. I’ve never in my life experienced anything like this. And in the 6 years after this, I’ve never again experienced this or even heard of anything like this. I think finally after this exchange they played one song people knew and words were up so we got to sing a little acoustic worship song. God bless Waterdeep, they are good people and a good band and I’m sure if they haven’t blacked out this moment from their memory they’d agree it was not a good moment.

This was by far the most uncomfortable worship experience ever. I’d love to hear some of your stories. Feel free to change name and dates to protect the innocent. I didn’t change any but my story was 6 years ago and the statute of limitations is up. If your story involves me though, please change my name

My pastor sent me the link to the upcoming Desiring God conference and I was blown away by the material. The  full title is “The Power of Words and the Wonder of God.” The speaker list and topics are incredible.

• Sinclair Ferguson – “The Tongue, the Bridle, and the Blessing: An exposition of James 3:1-12” This is going to be incredible. Some amazingly difficult scripture here.
• Bob Kauflin – “Words of Wonder: What Happens When We Sing.” I love Bob Kauflin and have received so much encouragement from what he has to say. This session is going to be critical, foundational worship doctrine and man am I looking forward to it.
• Mark Driscoll – “How Sharp the Edge? Christ, Controversy, and Cutting Words.” Are you kidding me? Set aaaand spike! This will be intense, Driscoll will bring the heat on this topic. There will be a firestorm on You Tube if they release video of this sermon, guaranteed.
• Daniel Taylor – “The Life-Shaping Power of Story: God’s and Ours.” Never heard of Daniel Taylor, but this will be a good songwriting session whether he realizes it or not.
• Paul Tripp – “War of Words: Getting to the Heart for God’s Sake.” – This is going to challenge the heck out of me. I’m scared to be in this session actually.
• John Piper – “Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross.” I’ve never heard Piper preach in person, I’m incredibly excited to get there.

Another part of this conference that will be awesome are all the panel discussions. I loved the Q&A sessions at Mars Hill Continuous Worship conference and I expect some great discussion with these guys.

In a strange way I think this conference will shape, assist, speak into, clarify, instruct, guide my leadership in worship more than any other conference I’ve been to. Even though this isn’t particularly about worship. I don’t know if you’ve realized that I’ve been posting a lot on that topic in this blog but lyrics and truth mean a lot to me in worship. I need to do a better job at building a community of worshipers (as Bob would say) by not just leading a rocking set but singing truth that unifies our body, glorifies God and promotes wellness in our souls by singing hard truth.

If this promo video doesn’t get you pumped, there’s something wrong with you, go seek help.