Experiencing Worship

Recently, Fair Oaks Church’s Worship Leader Joel Slater posted an article on the FairOaksArts blog called “Where’d the Worship Leader Go?” that had me smiling as I read it.

In the post, Joel describes his experience of leading the Sunday worship and taking a moment to pull back from the microphone so that he can hear the voices of the congregation lifting up the Lord in song. Joel characterized this moment as one of his “greatest joys” in worship because it means he’s done his job in bringing everyone else to an authentic place of worship, not just listening to a musical performance of worship songs by the worship leader.

This touched me in a couple of ways … as a member of the congregation, this is one of my favorite experiences too (not that I don’t appreciate Joel’s vocal leadership) but there’s just something raw and true about all those voices joined together to praise God. That’s probably why I’ve always enjoyed choirs – especially a good gospel choir – whether joined in unison or singing 6-part harmonies, the abandon of the one for the unification of many to sing praises to our God as one is a picture of Christ’s church as it should be.

Years ago, at what may have been my very first Contemporary Christian concert, Bart Millard, lead singer for MercyMe, ended his concert by leading the audience in the classic hymn, Amazing Grace. By the second line of the first verse the band had backed out and by the end of the first verse, Bart had faded out. The audience, unaware that the band was in fact exiting the stage while eyes were closed, hands lifted high, continued to sing all 4 traditional verses and with at least four parts of harmony wafting up the stadium seating of this congregation of thousands, oblivious to the band’s departure. Now that’s worship! No one was leading us what to sing next or for how long or in what key or how many parts, we just did it out of the true expression of our love for Christ and somehow it just came together... one of my all time favorite moments of worship.

In my personal space of worship, my most cherished moments are the ones where I’m moved to silence. Music is very personal to me – it tells a story – even if it’s not my story, it somebody in that room’s story and I feel that with every word and note. It’s not uncommon for me to be in the middle of singing and find the words of a given song have convicted me or consoled me with such depth that the lump in my throat leaves me silent and breathless.

That was actually something I prayed long about and weighed carefully when Joel asked me if I’d be interested in helping to lead worship on Wednesdays at Fair Oaks. Can I make an emotional separation from the music so that I’m effective in leading others? Do I want to make the separation? Do I have to make a separation? Can I maintain my authenticity and spiritual connection in worship and not inadvertently bring everyone else’s experience to a screeching halt? In that shift, I have a duty of care to their worship experience over my own and I can intellectually accept and embrace that, the question was (and occasionally still is) am I ready for that.

I’ve always been a believer that God does not call the equipped but rather equips the called, so perhaps in my weakness God makes me strong enough to get through 3 songs each Wednesday without choking up or breaking down so that He can use me to lead someone else through his or her raw emotional connection with Him experienced through the music.

Bravely (or perhaps just stupidly) the second time I lead worship for Wednesday services I picked a song that always chokes me up. In the bridge of “Here I am to Worship” is the line “I’ll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross” (I can’t even type it with out tearing up) and it always brings me right back to the spring that I was saved. I experience that moment as if it were new each time I sing that line.

I surely can’t be alone here … is there a song or a line or a passage of scripture that no matter how many times you sing it or read it, it moves you with the surprise of emotions it did the first time?

Countdown to Congress - Salt Lake City Bound!

I don't blog about my "day job" too much, but in about 10 hours my alarm clock is going to go off and I'll finish the last of my packing to head to Salt Lake City, Utah for my company’s “Annual Congress” - a week long event of conference, expo and governance meetings for the association's leadership and general membership.


Conventions can be a great time of renewal when you're an attendee (about 6000 this year) ... not quite the same experience when you're running it. The new role I moved into with my organization last year has put me working directly with the Board of Directors which has meant a lot more travel for governance meetings. Fortunately, DC makes a great central location for our BOD to fly into, so I haven’t had to go very far to work with them.

As I began to plan for this trip to Utah, it occurred to me that this is the first time in two years I’ve been on an airplane … it’s only been 3 times total in this millennium – once before 9-11 and twice after.

Yeah, I’m not much of a world traveler. If it were a reasonable option, I’d rather drive to get to my destination. I’m not afraid of flying by any means – the first job I had out of college had me on a plane 8 – 10 times a year. Perhaps it’s that I have a family now that makes a difference.

Although the kids have been shipped off to a grandparent or aunt and uncle for a week here or there, this is actually the longest I will have been away from my husband since we were married. Is that odd or typical? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I guess I’ll know better by day eight.

Pray for my safe travel and for those five boys (3 human, 2 canine) not to kill each other while Mom’s away.

(My) Man vs. Food

I must confess, we watch a lot of food shows. Between the Food Network, TLC and the Travel Channel, there's a lot to choose from. Anyone following me on Twitter may have seen a Tweet from me Wednesday night that I was watching Adam Richman's "Man vs. Food" on the Travel Channel. At 10:00 at night, this is rarely a good idea.

I thought I was watching it by myself (the intermittent snoring was apparently a clever cover) when apparently the description of the item being made pulled my husband Edward out of a dead sleep. It's entirely possible the smell actually came out of the television to wake him... even the dogs perked up.

What were they making that was so intriguing? For the first stop on the Baseball Special, Adam was at Gateway Grizzlies, one of the restaurants at GCS Ballpark in Sauget, IL. One of their unique specialties is a burger served between two Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Ohhh yeah, you heard me.

Doughnut sliced in half and fried face down on the skillet, burger, maple bacon, cheddar cheese all fried and melted together. Yeah, that'll pull you out of a dead sleep. Other than some mutual elbow jabbing while watching the show, nothing else was really said about it.

Today when I got home from work my dearest husband was slaving over the stovetop recreating this dreamy masterpiece we'd seen on TV and I have to say it was AMAZING. How could it be anything but? It was dinner and dessert all rolled into one. Almost like a poor man’s Monte Cristo, it's so simple not to try. You won't regret it.