Here is PART 1 if you have not read that yet…

ABC’s 20/20 ran the story of the murder that happened in my house. Imagine seeing your house with your kitchen, the front of your house and more juxtaposed with crime scene photos and police video of a bloody murder. It was a bit unnerving and proof that allowing the film crew to “reenact” the scene in our home would have been a terrible choice.

Murrieta police and the District Attorney’s office I am sure enjoy the publicity of their success, but as the newer home owner its a bit gruesome and disappointing see how our community allowed the media to exploit the situation. One of ABC’s camera angles showed a document with our full address on it, for instance. My wife had repeated requests for our home to be filmed.

With the man behind bars with a life sentence my house has a story but not the full story told. This neighborhood is a great neighborhood and our city an incredible place to live. We love the house and will live well in it.

The sad news here is how a family and neighborhood were assaulted and how evil destroys. The house is just a house but my prayer is that our family would redeem this house and bless our neighborhood and city. God has my family living here for a purpose.

Here are some bizarre factoids:

• The killer was a devout Jehovah’s Witness and elder in the church (I am a pastor.)
• The public defenders last name is Kirkpatrick
• The day of the filming, we saw the crew filming in a similar house and the crews awkwardness at our glaring at them
• Our house was shown on national TV and my lawn had a brown spot (At least they could have warned me so I could have painted it green!)
• ABC showed very gruesome pictures of the crime scene…flashing the victim’s body into every single cut to and away from commercials and in the footage as a motif. Seriously! (ABC, you SUCK by the way).
• The circumstantial evidence was so huge, the jury took only 3 hours after a full three week trial but all the evidence was circumstantial. (I guess buying life $1M in life insurance, googling ways to kill and not telling 911 about your dead wife first before talking about the supposed break in swayed the vote.)

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Bigger than  “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” film, bigger than “The Dark Night” the video game “Modern Warfare 2″ by Activision is a $550 Million launch. What this says about our culture and our times is that how we are entertained has changed dramatically. How will live and experience our daily lives and what impacts us were once the perview of film. Now we see video games as a backdrop for discussion about life.

What are your thoughts on this cultural shift? Is this a good, bad or neutral change.

HT: CNET.com

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CNNMoney.com recently did a series of articles based on research by payscale.com and found that 67% of those that lead worship or direct music in local churches for a vocation say the job is stressful. The research says this job is in the top 15 MOST stressful. Uhmm, this is obvious to those of us who lead worship, but to have research debunk the myth of the glamor of being a music guy/gal in a church might be helpful in fixing some things.

In the article we mentions how weddings and funeral musical work is stressful, but they really do not go to the underlying reasons I believe the majority of people in this vocation incur stress. Notice that senior pastors, youth directors and other ministry personnel are not on this list. While all ministry is stressful, something unique to this activity is in play. I say this with deep respect for those in other roles.

I fundamentally believe there is pandemic implosion of the worship leader role and vocation–even for the volunteer or bi-vocational worship leader. History shows this current pattern to be true (nothing new about worship wars for instance). Each week I talk with very talented people in this line of work and the same story is replayed over and over again. Every conference I attend, phone call or IM I field or observations I listen to by others has led me to consider a wide-scale threat. Glamorous you say?

Here are some unique mythbusting nuggets to consider:

• When there is conflict in a local church, the music becomes a rallying point for battle. Ever heard of the term “worship wars” in your setting? Well, guess who lives in the middle of that.
• Everyone has an opinion about the music and experience in a worship service, with the one who is leading the activity often being the only non-voting member in the discussion.
• Everything this person does is in public and executed through other people: choirs, worship bands, tech teams, etc.
• Leadership of churches often devalue the scale and scope of work to execute the quality and impact they expect.
• The skills needed include: creative and artistic genius, project management, musical talent, stage presence, theological facility, leadership, administration, ability to work independently, ability to be micromanaged and you have to look the part (whatever that means).
• In the push to be relevant to culture, the worship leader is only as relevant as the latest thing on one hand or if you have opposite views he/she must reject the latest thing. You can’t win either way.
• Spiritual warfare is heated in the activity of our public worship settings. So, obviously in that sense these folks are targets.

I have some ideas on specific solutions to help the local church win and the worship leader survive and perhaps even thrive. However, before I do that in another post (or series of posts) I am interested in your view of my summary and what the research shows.

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Recap: This Sunday our worship band brought it home once again. We had a new guitarist/backing vocalist.  Early on in the service you see a rare flub by our amazing Kyle on the drums. He is one of the most solid drummers I have EVER played with and he is only 19! Obviously, this was not one of our most polished musically for the rest of us either, but as a whole we brought in our folks to sing along and participate. That’s one of our main “wins” and I think we did OK on that.

Set List: As performed by the following worship leaders…

• Everyday – Lincoln Brewster
• Today is The Day – Lincoln Brewster
• Glorious One – Fee Band
• Great Is Thy Faithfulness – Lincoln Brewster
• How Great is Our God – Chris Tomlin

Links:

• Planning Center production sheet for this service
• Fred McKinnon aggregates worship sets from all over the world
• Worship sets I follow
• Sunridge Worship site

How was your worship weekend? What do you do when you have a couple flubs?

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It is true. On November 17 Xbox 360 will now be able to interface with your Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts. Imagine, in the middle of your Halo 3 match you feel like tweeting the world about the color of paint on the wall or update your Facebook status on how your achievements fall short as far as your gamer scores. Sound ridiculous? Perhaps. But, I have found Xbox and other gaming systems to be a real place to hangout with people. I enjoy playing with my son, nephew and friends whether online or in person.

Will adding more social features to gaming be an enhancement or ridiculous? Please chime in.

HT: www.crunchgear.com

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For some, the Trust Fall might seem cliche. However, given that our church staff is now without our pastor of 14 years and our church has big challenges we learned much at Hume Lake this week. Ultimately, someone has to have your back in order for you to be safe. I love the question to those who are to catch you: “Am I safe?” Can you ask this of your team? Your family? Your friends?

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I quit this week…

1. Worrying about what I cannot change.
2. Thinking I have answers when I don’t.
3. Eating any sugar or complex carbs. (Sigh)
4. Forgetting that I still have dreams to dream.
5. Expecting others to lead me when I need to lead me.

Are you quitting anything this week?

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Service Recap: I was really moved this week as it was apparent by the volume of voices that people were singing along in full force! With the loss of our pastor, it seems our people are ready to move forward and see what God is going to deliver this next chapter. The interim will be trying time. God will test both the leadership and the average Sunridge family member these coming months. Let’s not miss out!

Worship Set List: Once again I am struck by the simplicity yet impact that Fee and Beeching’s “Glory to God Forever” delivered. This weekend’s worship song set was about our eternal activity of worship.

1. Forever – Chris Tomlin
2. Glory to God Forever – Fee Band
3. Everlasting God – Brenton Brown
4. Cry Out Your Name – Jeff Moore
5. Majesty – Delirious?

Related Links:

• direct link to Vimeo channel with all worship videos
• direct link to Vimeo channel with our sermons
• link to Fred’s blog with worship set lists from all over the world
• our PCO worship flow sheet

How was your worship weekend? Please share and give some feedback if you observed what we did at Sunridge.

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