I can’t tell you how much the below Driscoll clip resonated with me. I’ve seen up close the destruction that in sues from this idolatrous seeking of some great past experience, some great moment in the church where God moved in a powerful way. The church and it’s leaders become fixated on how to get it back and completely reject what God is doing presently. I’ve seen it close, been part of it, and it’s devastating to a church’s health.

Sometimes the church experiences a tremendous hurt, maybe a leader being removed or caught out in sin, and instead of faithfully walking through God’s restoration in the body, there’s a detachment and this constant day dreaming of what used to be. I’ve see that up close too, and it’s devastating. Worship leaders, make sure you aren’t chasing experiences, for the benefit of yourself and your body…don’t do it.

I read a lot of great blogs from some amazing worship leaders, pastors, geeks, you name it. I feel bad hoarding them and not sharing with you all. I want to take each Friday and share the love. So here’s some of what has captured my attention over the last week.

• Pastor In a Box – My friend and pastor’s brother in Dallas is doing this promotion/hype event/joke that is causing quite a stir in the church world. I’ll be honest when I was told about this before it was publicly announced I had a good laugh. Knowing Ben (Pastor Ben Dailey excuse me) it’s just hilarious to me. Pastor Ben Dailey just did an interview with Church Executive Magazine, Church Marketing Sucks had some critique for him, and there’s been a smattering of other blogs chiming in. Ben is an amazing man of God and is doing incredible things over there. Much love.
• Advance ’09 Conference: Resurgence of the Local Church – John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Ed Stetzer and more speaking. Nuff said.
• Perry Noble saying he’d like to meet with Matt Chandler and John Piper. Perry did a blog series on 5 leaders he’d like to meet with and it’s quite an eclectic group. I’m encouraged with him including Matt and John.
• Tehilla Music on dealing with worship music complaints in church. Great insight into dealing with people relationally and turning them from complainers into helpers.
• Mark Driscoll Marriage and Men sermon. One of the most challenging, convicting, butt kicking sermons I’ve heard in my life. Every man needs to watch this.

Enjoy.

Ahhhh… Finally something so fresh and clean from the durty south. This album is by far Lecrae’s best work yet. Rebel is a fresh work of art painted with vicious beats mixed with theology and flat out gut checks. I love how he is capable of taking redeemable qualities of secular rap/hip hop and transferring them to a positive tip in Christian hip hop. He definitely has some feel good Friday night beats on this album with tracks like “Don’t Waste Your Life” feat. Dwayne Tryumf & Cam and “Live Free” feat. Sho Baraka and Jai. This track has received the biggest responses from listeners so far.

Lyrically, he is a beast on this album. The whole theme “Rebel” is lead with an Intro featuring Pastor Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, preaching about true rebellion in this sin-soaked society. He goes on to attest to Jesus being a true rebel in a society of religious law and sin. He also goes on ripping cigarette smoking, lustful drinkers on motorcycles, thinking that they are rebels, when in fact that has all been done before, and the only true rebellion left in this society is reading your Bible and following Jesus. AMEN! that sets the tone for this entire album

Notable tracks:

• Don’t Waste Your Life
• Identity feat. Da T.r.u.t.h.
• Breathin to Death
• Live Free

I’ve been looking forward to Mark Discoll’s new book “Death By Love” for some time. The concept is to explain the work of Jesus on the cross through pastoral letters written to his people addressing their real life issues. This content doesn’t appear to be for the faint of heart, but then again, anyone in leadership knows that isn’t for the faint of heart either. I can’t wait to get my hands on this book, in the meantime here’s the amazing promo video.

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.

Carlos Whittaker runs the crazy popular blog RagamuffinSoul.com. He is the worship leader at a megachurch in Atlanta called Buckhead Church. Currently he’s acting as a blog reporter at a stealth Rick Warren conference where a 1,000 pastors were invited to attend and a select few invited to speak on a range of topics. Mark Driscoll is there speaking on discipleship and had some really interesting, amazing and funny things to say as usual. Mark tackles the topics of worship, multi-site churches, the fake Mark Driscoll on twitter and why he likes to pick fights. Feed folks you gotta click through to see the video.

As I posted earlier, a few of us from our church were able to attend the Continuous Worship conference at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. The highlight of the conference was no doubt Mark Driscoll’s teaching on idolatry. It is life changing stuff and should be required listening for all christians but especially for those of us leading worship in music. I won’t attempt to summarize in this post, rather I’ll just you can download it here or listen to it below. Enjoy.

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I love this blog by the way, I have been reading so many great articles and it has been a fascinating journey into the minds of a lot of men and women that I really admire. One of which is Mark Driscoll. He is provocative, authentic, truthful and full of sass who is constantly turning out great quotes that get you thinking. In reading through an article he wrote about the dangers and shortcomings of the “megachurch” one quote really stood out to me.

“The major blind spot of megachurches is that they tend to be very effeminate with aesthetics, music, and preaching perfectly tailored for moms. Manly men are repelled by this, and many of the men who find it appealing are the types to sing prom songs to Jesus and learn about their feelings while sitting in a seafoam green chair drinking herbal tea—the spiritual equivalent of Richard Simmons. A friend of mine calls them “evangellyfish” with no spiritual vertebrae.”

Article from Christianity Today called “Men are from Mars Hill” posted 7/04/2006

Wow, that certainly sums up a few churches that I have been to and explains the lack of true masculinity and the over abundance of estrogen found there. I’m happy to say that I think our church strikes an incredible balance in appealing to both men and women from the ambiance, to the worship to the preaching and has found a way to be sensitive but not wimpy, passionate but not flaky and masculine but not chauvinistic. When I read the line about singing prom songs to Jesus it gave me such an image of what I don’t want the worship songs I write to evoke. I don’t ever want my worship to be a big cheesefest with ewwy gooey lyrics that don’t translate into any actual life experience and I think communicating our love to God and His love towards others deserves a bit of forethought and integrity in the delivery. Again, I don’t think that we are in danger of singing worship songs that would appeal to the spiritual equivalent of Richard Simmons, certainly not with Kyle & Aaron at the helm, but it was more of a heart and mind check for me when writing lyrics. Do they sound like they could be playing in the background of some tacky 80′s teen flick or do they sound like a passionate lover pouring out the deep cry of her heart to her true love? Even as I’m writing this I want to tell myself that if I did say something lame and hooky to God, He sees my heart and would know the true source of the words but since scripture says “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” I better check my heart to see if its producing shallow and juvenile puppy love songs or deep expressions of a life lived in true intimacy with Jesus.