Monday, September 29, 2008

sunday afterthoughts

Sunday was beautiful in so many ways. I took 4 team members from the worship team down to the ENTER worship conference in Colorado Springs for the weekend. You can read all our posts about that below. I told my wife after service today that as we were worshipping I was seeing so many of the things we talked about from the conference take effect, or I just saw why or how they worked. It was a neat experience for me.

We didn't hold a thursday night rehearsal this week which made me very nervous, and yet the band rocked. For not rehearsing you guys did an amazing job.

Curtis knocked it out of the park yesturday. I thought he did a great job on personal evangelism. Make sure to listen to that if you weren't there.

I love worshipping with all of you.
adam

set list sunday
Solution - United
Let your kingdom come - adam cruz
the stand - united
rescue - Jared Anderson
Go tell it - Lee Mcderment

Saturday, September 27, 2008

final session

this last session was a stool set format with Ross, Glenn, Paul, and Thomas Miller from Gateway. This discussion was on creating a "PRESENCE CULTURE" in you worship ministry.

-- The presence of God is what we are after when leading worship, nothing else.
--the presence of God is what makes us different that everyone else
-- We carry the presence of God everywhere we go.
-- Convince your people that they carry the presence of God. It doesnt just come from the pastor or worship leader. You bring when you walk into that sanctuary.
-- In order to have a presence culture we must have unity, we must create community.
-- stop coming to church for you, your coming to "come together". Don't isolate when you come to church. (THIS WAS HUGE)
-- God wants to have a conversation with us. Its a dialoge, not a one way conversation.
-- become a worship PASTOR not just a worship LEADER
-- You must pastor your worship team before you can pastor the congregation. WOW. SO GOOD.
-- if worship is not just music then why is it the only model we use

This conference was more than I expected. I can't explain in words how excited I am to implement stuff. Most of what I was challenged with was personal leadership stuff. There was so much that I learned how to be a better leader. I am overwhelmed with such good stuff. I have heard it said to wait 3 months before you implement anything from a conference because after 3 months what still sticks is what really meant the most to you. So I will be evaluating some things over the next months. Your worship team here at element church is so excited for the opportunity they have to lead you and we are excited for what we learned this weekend.

Tommorow is going to be a good sunday. Don't miss it. These next 2 weeks are weeks at element church you don't want to miss. Come ready to meat with God tommorow morning. He has extended the invitation and wants to meet with you.

Adam

Friday, September 26, 2008

revolving door number 2

again this has been, hands down, my favorite aspect of the conference. each speaker is given 12 minutes to deliver their best stuff. This session was in regards to the "FAMILY WORSHIP TABLE". Such good stuff

Ross Parsley -
-- the blended service model is the service model that makes no one happy
-- the next generation "alternative" service divides your church into 2 seperate churches that never cross paths. WOW
-- It takes no skill or expertise for a church to grow older. The challenge lies in remembering to reach down and raise the next generation.
-- church hopping makes you a critic of every church you go to
-- the ONE thing young people want in todays society is to BELONG, and we aren't doing a good job making that possible in a lot of todays churchs
-- we need Abraham, Isaac & Jacob for our churches to be strong and healthy
-- we have sent the kids away to the KIDS table so we can enjoy ourselves. HOLY CRAP!
-- how will each generation learn to serve each other if they never interact.
-- we need the wisdom, experience, and resource of older people mixed with the enthusiasm, zeal, and passion of the youth.

Glenn Packiam -
--20 year influence rule, we influence people 10 years on either side of us, thus the reason for multiple generations on our teams.
-- there must be a seat at the table for all generations
-- the songs they are singing in youth, and college should be the same as sunday morning and vice versa. VERY GOOD!

there is lots more, but thats the good stuff

worship with paul baloche

Paul Baloche wrote Open the Eyes of my Heart and several other huge worship hits. It was great to worship with him tonight.





Session 4

This session was one of the most well presented. Glenn Packiam did a session called "Let worship rock and Justice Roll". Wow was this session not only a good reminder of why we do what we do but even an eye opener for how we define true worship. I love element church because I do believe that we do a great job at this. At taking care of people in our community as our number one priority.

Here are some thoughts:
-- does worship cater to us or does it make claims of us?

-- worship has become something we are consumers of and not something that consumes us. WOW!

-- worship is designed to wake up up to the world not insulate us from it

-- do you really want to know what has God's full attention. Worship helps us hear what God hears. The cries of the needy.

-- worship is loving the least of these as if they were Jesus

garden of the gods

yesturday during our 3 hour dinner break, none of us were hungry so I took everyone to the Garden of the Gods. It is such a beautiful place. I have had many conversations with curtis about devo's here and great God moments. So here are some pics.





Enter Session 2 & 3

Ross Parsley and Senior Pastor Brady Boyd sat at a table and did a session together. I didn' even have time to take notes because of all the good stuff. I wrote down a couple of things from there session.
-- In order for this relationship to work you have to choose to HONOR each other. I am not sure I have heard anyone use this word in this context and it was so good.
-- In regards to concerns, TIMING & TONE is everything.
-- "Care about sunday morning as much as the senior pastor does" SO GOOD!!

As I was sitting there I was so blessed because as they talked thru different issues church's have, I was thinking how Jeff and I relate, and thought I really have it good. Even all our worship team made comments, "THAT DIDNT EVEN APPLY TO YOU HUH?". I just laughed. It was still really good. But I am definently blessed to have Jeff on my team.

Session 3.




So far this was my favorite session. They had a huge door with 2 screens on each side of it. It was called the "Revolving Door". They an 1.5 hours and had 7 speakers for 12 minutes. They cut out all the extra and just gave us the RAW best 12 minutes they had. This is such a great concept. It reminded me of our whiteboard conference.

Ross Parsley
--Teams are made up of individuals who have given up their RIGHTS in order to benefit the whole team.
--insecurity comes from comparison of the wrong things. (talking about people who get jealous of other people)
--we're not responsible for the opportunities we don't have, but the one's we DO have. O MY WORD. SO GOOD

Matthew Fallentyne
-- create a culture of trust not a circle of trust
-- do you love the people of your church, if not you shouldn't be the pastor
-- your team is able to sense authenticity

Brad Parsley
-- create a culture of evalutaion
-- life is not fair, ministry is not fair. We have to evaluate and challenge our team
--as a leader you must first, HUMBLE YOURSELF, in order to create this culture
--you must be child-like not CHILD-ISH,

Glenn Packiam pt 1
-- when bringing up conflict issues, if you bring up problems after the set its called criticism, if you do it before its healthy conflict.
-- Seperate the person from the problem
-- focus on interests not positions, THIS WAS REALLY GOOD
--invent option for mutual gain
--Have a standard or system for making decisions
--People will own a decision when they are allowed into the process

The last one I wasn't able to get. but this was my favorite.

Starting our Friday morning session right now. Looking forward to what we will learn. Today are all the break out sessions. We are all torn because there is going to be such good stuff.






refreshed,
adam

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Enter worship conference update

expanded! Thats the word of my heart right now. I love it. I love these conferences where I am stretched, encouraged, & challenged.
Things opened up this morning with some incredible worship. A great time of soaking in God's presence. The concepts being presented by each speaker so good.
Session 1 was with Ross Parsley on 21st century worship. Here are some thoughts.
---God is the initiator and we are the responders. God has already extended the invitation to worship, we just need to respond. Our prayers should never be "God come", we often spend time trying to convince God to come to our worship experience. Guess what he has already extended the invitation, he is already here, WE MUST RESPOND. WOW.

---If you are resentful with the team God has given you then why would he give you anyone else. HELLO!!

--- We are called to be multi-sensory. Whole body, whole hearted, whole mind.

--- Skill is a terrible foundation for your worship ministry. WOW!

---Many of our worship ministry flow this way: Skill, tradition, personality, musical style, organizational structure, ministry philosophy, biblical principles. This is opposite of what it should start with.

--- We often believe that worship style is where the annointing is.


So much more, to much to even right down. More to come on session 2. Later tonight. The New Life CD release party is starting now. Its going to rock my face.

LOVING JESUS,
Adam

enter worship conference

I am sitting in our hotel room here in beautiful colorado springs. I brought some of our worship team down for a worship conference here at New Life Church called ENTER. We had a great drive down, I got the AMAZING sampler from T.G.I.Fridays (one of my favorite resturaunts), then we caught a late night movie, GET SMART, which for the 2nd time was gut wrenchingly funny.

I am strongly anticipating our time this weekend. We are going to be encouraged, stretched, moved, and have a great time worshipping God all weekend. I will be posting details from each speaker, I am very excited. Off to bed.

Anticipating,
Adam

Sunday, September 14, 2008

its been to long

sorry it has been busy lately, I havn't had time to update at all.

We have had some great things happening around element lately. 496 today. I heard we had 3 chairs left in 2nd service. We really need to get into that next location so that we can continue to grow.

Jeff and I talked after church today and he shared some incredible stories with me about things God is doing in people. AWESOME. Our Launch Anniversary is coming and you do not want to miss it. Talk about some good God stories.

Jeff brought it down today. If you missed his message, you SO NEED to go listen to it. My favorite line that has convicted me: "stop trying to be like someone else, and start striving to look like Jesus and you will become everything you are supposed be". My Paraphrase, but close. Also gave a huge challenge to be in the word.

Halfway thru the series LOST. You will not want to miss our last week. Its going to be powerful.

Alright off to have some dinner with my wife,

Set List - Sept. 14
Not to Us - Chris Tomlin
Glorious One - Kristian Stanfill
O Lord Most High - Joel Hatcher
Better is One Day - Matt Redman
Pleasing to You - Jared Anderson