No . . . not the musical by the band The Who. I mean Tommy McNally, he recently joined the band and is in his audition phase but he has already begun making his mark on the team. Last week after our Band Meeting i received an email from Tommy, and I wanted to pass it along because it speaks to the heart of what’s going on at Team Church and especially in regards to the Worship Ministry. Tommy comes to us with a lot of experience in worship bands so when he wrote me this I took it with as much humility that it was given in but also was joyful in what God has allowed us to create here at Team Church. So without further rambling here is Tommy:

We started coming full time to Team in January and I could see the unity and the heart in the Team and I wanted to be a part of it.
With what we talked about today, people (whether they are musical / technical or not) can see what is going on on stage. If the team’s heart is focused on personal worship, the congregation can see that and I think makes it easier for them to connect.

Thanks for the opportunity to serve with such a great group of people at Team. I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone better and serving more.

What we talked about last week is so very important. Creating a culture of worship starts with you being a worshipper and it spills out into everything you do. No effort, other than that of becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ will very bring as much satisfaction, peace and joy in this life. We want people who come to Team Church to experience that with us, in order to do that we have to be change agents.

Tommy saw it, who else is watching that we can impact their lives by becoming better worshippers of God on Sunday and every day . . . remember, someone is always watching . . .

- KC

Today is truly a day of first’s, I’ve been on staff for over 4 years and have never done what is occurring right now. I’m not at church, I’m on vacation. I’m not worshipping anywhere, except in God’s sanctuary (aka the beach), and I’m not worried about leading anything right now. The band is in the capable hands of John Moore, a local worship leader who I’ve just recently had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. The only thing I regret is not seeing this awesome thing unfold from the perspective of our crowd at church today.

My sound team has not had the best of my leadership in the last few months, but we saw that the value they add to the service is indispensable, so we made the call to hire a sound professional to come and train this team.
***LEADERSHIP TIP*** If you’re not “the guy” don’t try to be, hire or train someone to be “the guy”
I’ve had the pleasure to work with Jeremiah Clever a few times on recording projects and know that he is probably one of the best in town at what he does. I fully trust that our team will be better because of the value he will add in these coming months.

Now, I must say that every ministry leader should get to the place where they can step off the stage and the ministry still happens. I just haven’t had the ability in the past 4 years. But something clicked about 6 months ago, and I began changing major area’s of the worship ministry at Team Church. I asked God to show me how to grow the team. The funny thing is the numbers dropped, but we’ve seen tremendous growth in the team, spiritually and in their performance.

I’m proud to lead this team and even prouder of the fact that they have grown to this level of leading other’s in worship with the God-given talents and gifts they possess. I’m glad that I am not there today (though I know I’m missing out). I know it will be an incredible experience for our church.

What fresh, new thing is God doing in your ministry these days? Maybe this week you can take a step out in faith to try something for the first time and see what God has in store for you and your congregation.

- KC

It has been an incredibly long time since I’ve posted . . . mainly because this blog is not so much a place for me to write, but a resource.  This is where I have been spending much of my time lately.  Trying to resource the ministry God has allowed me to lead.  I believe that most of us aspire to do something with the one and only life we have been given.  I believe that God has a unique calling for each on of us.  Most of us however either don’t believe that, or we do and we are just plain lazy and never “get around to” doing something about it.  So I am writing today to challenge you and myself to “do something” about it.

Do you know what you want to do?  Do you have some thoughts about what it will take to get there?  Have you tried to start and something gets in your way?  If so, know that I’m right there with you.  I’ve been there . . .  I believe the difference between dreaming and doing is ACTION steps.  Now there are many more experts out there who can tell you much,much more about how to really follow your dreams.  But in the past few months I’ve seen things happen that I thought would never happen.  Below are a few examples of what I’ve begun to do . . .

ASPIRATION: The last few years I have tried to figure out how to step back from my Sunday morning responsibilities to observe the team so I can lead them better

ACTION: This weekend my wife Julie Clark will be leading.  Last weekend Bruce Florence (whom I’m discipling) led a few songs.  In 3 weeks we’ll hav a guest worship leader while Julie and I are on vacation.

ASPIRATION: I love technology, particularly websites and designing them, but it loves to distract me since I love it so much . . . For the last 2 years I have been the administrator of the Team Church website.

ACTION: I have handed off the administration of the website to our Graphics and Publications Manager Rebecca Fish.

ASPIRATION: Our sound team is incredible, I have taken them as far as they can go, but long for them to go somewhere I cannot take them.

ACTION: Next month we are hiring a Sound Engineer for 3 months to train and develop this team so that Sunday morning becomes a much greater experience as a whole.

ASPIRATION: FIve years ago, I took this position as the Worship Pastor at Team Church.  It is one thing I aspired to . . . But part of that aspiration was to write and record songs for the “c” church and for the “C” church.  For two years now, Julie and I have complained about all the things that were holding us back form this dream.  It’s really sad some of the things we thought were really holding us back.s

ACTION: We determined to spend a portion of our tax return on a new computer so we could record demoes of our music.  We determined that asking people for help was not a bad thing . . . (read Acts 2 and tell me if the church isn’t supposed to operate like this).  We determined that what we thought this journey would look like, doesn’t have to fit in some mold.  We currently have 2 demoes under our belt out of the 40 songs we have in our scattered notebooks, journals and scraps of paper.

SO . . . what do you aspire to?  What are you doing about it . . .

Below in the comments section I would love to hear about your dreams.  My job as your pastor is to “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”.  So, please share those things that you aspire to below.  I want to see us be the church, I want to see us reach our God-given potential so that His church may be built up and that He may be lifted up, because in doing this He will draw the lost to himself.

– KC