Beyond Sunday Morning

Creative Team Update

2012-01-31T20:38:00.001-08:00

So I few weeks ago I told you I would share the blogs of my team. Do me a favor - follow them, give them encouragements and questions. This is not so much a mandate to get people to follow my blog or theirs as it is an opportunity for us to chronologically record the creative pursuits of myself and the creatives at Victory Life Church.

Siobhan Walker (My beautiful wife & creative assistant)
Kenny Buller (my assistant and guitarist extraordinaire)

I'll have to update the rest soon because although they may have gotten them up. I don't know what their website is yet.

Creative Team

2012-01-10T18:12:00.001-08:00

So I gave a charge to my creative team today - they are to do a blog as well. I've been finding that my team has so much great information to share and they have some awesome insight on how to do church better that I felt they should be sharing their knowledge as well. As soon as they get all their stuff up and running I will let you know here. Plus, you never really learn something unless you teach it. That is the true test.

Excited to see what God has in store for us this year.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T14:26:00.001-08:00

Another year comes to a close and I couldn't be more thankful for all the blessings God has given us.

Siobhan and I celebrated four years with Victory Life Church this year and the church is growing so much. We started 2011 with big trucks and land movers and cleared the land to get the church ready to build soon.

Siobhan is busy with homeschool and we were very excited to get Camden involved with Gull Lake Homeschool Partnership this past fall. She would say that one of the more exciting things for us this year was our new van and I would have to agree. Happy wife, happy life :). Another big change for us was the move in April. Many of you remember the tornados in May that hit our house about one month after we moved. So we're finally getting settled in to the new place. We are grateful to all of our friends and family for helping us during that time (Ian, I still have your chainsaw).

Camden is six years old now and super into transformers even though I won't let him see the movies, haha, I think his imagination is better. Although I think he's finally ready to see Star Wars. He's doing a great job with his school and he's so smart. The homeschool partnership has made it available for him to take Lego Robotics, Mad Science and private violin lessons as well as an art class. We love it!

Bennett is four and acts like he's six. He and Camden are best friends and do everything together. He is also doing preschool right now and will be starting kindergarten in the fall. Bennett is showing some signs of talent in engineering and my Dad would be proud. There's not many days that go by where my little Benny is so excited to show me his new architecture of some sort of blocks or Legos or dirt (summer time).

Truman started talking this year which marks the end of Siobhan and I making up what we think he's trying to say. We just might have to have more kids :). Truman's favorite things are cookies, Thomas Train and dancing to Michael Jackson.

And I get to come home to all of that world of fun everyday. I love these days because when I walk in the door I kiss the love of my life and hear a big huge "DADDY!" from all three of my boys.

Siobhan and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We pray that all of the desires of your heart would come true according the heart of God. Thank you all for being in our life and sharing with us in the grace that He gives us. I know that as you prosper so will the Kingdom of God and we love to celebrate with you in those things.

God bless you all!

Last minute shopping

2011-12-23T11:34:00.001-08:00

If you're not convinced that a large church is a good thing take a drive over to the retail side of your town today and see how many people are living right next to you that need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

It literally took me fifteen minutes today to drive across the street from T.J.Maxx to Lowe's and I thought of how frustrating a day like today can be and how easy it is to get angry at the people right around me in their cars. It's as if when I'm physically around people I put on the behavior of a Christian, but if we are all next to each other while encased in our own vehicles it's okay to get mad at the person next to me and call them an idiot. I mean I would do this to their face if they weren't in their car right?

Okay, maybe not.

I guess what I'm finding in myself is the reality that today is a day where I realize that there are a lot of people in this little town that don't know Christ, don't have a good church family, and haven't experienced the life-giving breath of God. I could take these opportunities to invite someone to church this weekend.

Is your church having any services this weekend? Let's invite them to meet our God.

Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. http://bible.us/Ps34.8.NIV

Talent Around You

2011-12-15T13:26:00.001-08:00

I have a confession. When God first laid it on my heart to move to Battle Creek, Michigan I remember something that I feared. I have always been a student of fine arts and have always held a high appreciation for them. Being completely honest, I didn't believe that would find many people in this town who shared that appreciation. And this was my fear. That God would put me in a place where I would be constantly educating elementary practices of music and not being challenged myself. Was I ever wrong. I remember asking God to put in me a desire to teach the elementary principles completely surrendering my joy and hope to play and be surrounded by those more talented than myself.

This fear that I had couldn't have been more off. Every person on our team continues to challenge me and we all grow together. And even when the voice comes in to say that I've exhausted all the resources around me - God continues to prove me wrong.

Today I took my son to his suzuki violin lesson and I continue to discover that there are amazing people everywhere I go.

Are you a worship leader struggling to find good talent to help the vision in your church? Don't give up praying and asking God for it. He will never disappoint. Also, ask Him to open up your eyes to see the people around you that you might have overlooked.

How is your audition process working for you? I believe the best way to get musicians to help out on your team is to network through the musicians you already have. Chances are they know someone who plays guitar and just haven't told you because you never asked.

I am so impressed with the awesome talent God has placed around me. I think that since I see this in the people that are around me my eyes are already inclined to see potential in those I haven't had the pleasure of formally auditioning yet.

Transfer Loyalty

2011-12-06T16:05:00.001-08:00

How well do you encourage your team to support other ministries in your church? This is a good story about my volunteer tech director and his team. I was out of town a few weeks ago and so was my Tech director. The producer that he had put in charge of all things technical saw a very big spill of a latte right in our front entry way about a half hour before church. Rather than go and find someone else who would be more suited for the job he went and got a mop and cleaned it up himself. Now, it was down time and it didn't distract him from his other duties, but one thing is noticeable - he wasn't sitting back in the green room waiting for service to begin. No, he was out with people saying hi, checking the lobby and video connections out there, probably chilling out doing what I would hope all worship teams would do - enjoying being with people. And he helped out.

My Pastor told me this when I got back. He spoke of how proud he was of this team and how he felt like he knew everyone one of them. How he felt they go out of their way to be a blessing to the church and to himself.

Now I could give all praise to this volunteer for what he did - but I give credit to his leader too. He attracts that type of person. Willing to do what needs to be done without grumbling or complaining. This is common place for our tech volunteers. They pray for and support other ministries in the church.

I wanted to draw out another truth from this story. These are the things that were evident when both myself and my key tech director were gone. Here's some great question to ask yourself: How effective is your team when you are gone? Are you the type of person that when you are away for vacation your ministry and team suffers? Does your team love your church? Your Pastor? Remove yourself from the equation for a minute and decide whether or not your team would be there if you weren't. Go away for a weekend and make sure that you're number one team is on when you are gone. It is my belief that a good leader fosters a good team. A great leader transfers loyalty to the leader he/she reports to and in turn fosters a great team of people who carry the torch of what you are doing just as well if not better than you do. People will miss you when you are gone for vacation or otherwise. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do that.

Sleigh Bells

2011-11-30T18:16:00.001-08:00

Every year comes around and I wonder, like every worship leader does, what Christmas songs should we do? The obvious, of course, is to sing the standard Christmas carols. But for most worship leaders in churches today we find that our musicians in general are not acquainted with Jazz Music Theory. For eleven months out of the year we challenge our musicians and worship teams with music from Hillsong, Tomlin, Gateway, Jesus Culture, Baloche, Newlife, etc. (if you don't see the irony in this sentence it's because you are not a musician - the rest of us can play this music in our sleep). Then for one month out of the entire year your ragtag gang of worshippers are called upon to play an Eb add9 fluently between two other chords switching an quarter note at a time. Or you're stuck with doing all the songs off of Tomlin's album "Glory in the Highest". I know it sounds like I'm making fun of that album, but in all truth that is the best album for the Christmas season for worship teams. It's really a brilliant thing that someone thought of the idea of bringing a product to church leaders that caters to the abilities of the people you have serving in your church already.

I have another suggestion... Sleigh Bells. That's right, for about $25 you can do what we have done this season at Victory Life Church. We rigged up an unused hi-hat stand to hold a Bell Tree. With this clever little contraption, I can do the same songs I would do all year round and change only one thing. Instead of a hi-hat or a ride on the quarter notes - insert awesomeness - Bell Tree. It turns all of your CCLI top twenties into Christmas songs. Wish "How Great is Our God" had a verse about baby Jesus to make it a Christmas song? No worries, you've got sleigh bells now! Is Israel Houghton too difficult for your team to play - try "We Have Overcome" with Sleigh Bells! Are you bummed Jared Anderson doesn't have enough Christmas songs for you to do? Look no further - "The Great I Am", just add a Bell Tree and whalla! Try something cool for the teens - "How He Loves" with Sleigh Bells!

Ok, maybe some of those have gone too far. But whether you do jazz or Sleigh Bells, have a blast with your team and your church this season! Merry Christmas!

Northpoint Church

2011-11-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

So I had the chance to go to Northpoint Church this morning. Andy Stanley wasn't there :(. And I would like to say that Steve Fee was there too and that we sang "All Because of Fee" for my friend Patrick's sake. But neither of those were true. Eddie Kirkland lead worship which was super cool. I have no idea who it was that spoke, but he was very engaging. I'm sure that I could track it down (of course he had to be good, this is the second largest church in the US and he's the back-up guy to Stanley. Unless you're Matt Chandler - that's not an easy role to fill).

Here's some of the things I liked and disliked about my visit:
1. The teaching pastor - totally relatable, funny. Now I know this is a seeker church but I'm not so sure that teaching an entire message without having a bible in plain sight is the direction our seeker churches should be going (it did show up at the end). I know I'm sounding super religious now - which I don't mean to be - but if I'm not a baseball fan but I go to a baseball game I sure hope to see a baseball. So if I weren't a Christian and I came to church I would not be at all offended by seeing a bible.

2. The music & lighting: amazing! Singable, easy to participate as well as not distracting with the lights. At the next conference I speak at I hope to relay to church leaders the value of lighting that gives the people the feeling like they are part of the event not a people played to. The lighting was inviting, soft where it needed to be and loud where it needed to be (but not loud like some churches that I have been to that use lasers).

3. The first impression: One of the best
Here I will start with my one and only negative only because I recently visited Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX. My wife and I drove and found it a little hard to know where to go at Northpoint.i think they're signs could've been a little bigger. But once we were in we were really treated very nicely. I have to give props to the two people in the lobby who noticed me looking up at the directional signage (I was looking at where to bring my kids). We have three boys, a five, four and two year old. These awesome people showed us where to go and waited for us to check our kids in and then held seats for us to sit up front (not too close up front because that would've been weird - it was the personal comfort space of a godly five rows back).

Other things to note was the twin worship center (translated in churchish: sanctuary). So if you have never heard about this it's because you don't follow church stuff like I do I have just never been down in Atlanta to see it until now. But they have identical worship spaces back-to-back from each other. One is basically an overflow service and it seemed to be working very well for them.

Anyways, my kids and my wife and I really enjoyed it this morning. Thank you to all the Northpoint people for making us feel at home. Except next time I come I want to have Andy Stanley there to preach to me, could you make that happen?

WFX 2011

2011-11-10T05:11:00.001-08:00

I'm at the WFX 2011 conference and expo this week. The expo is simply awesome if you've never been before like me. Today, we'll do more conference stuff.

This is exactly what we need as we move forward in another build for Victory Life Church. Due Diligence - making sure you've got all the educated facts in place before spending a lot of money on building supplies, furniture, a/v gear and so on and so forth.

Really great to be here. Learning a ton of necessary information.

Done!

2011-06-04T06:18:00.001-07:00

GeoTagged, [N42.29099, E85.24212]

Well, I want to apologize for my lack of posting here for the past couple of months. I've been working on a huge project for our church series called "I Luv My Church". It spanned seven weeks of which five of those included a feature testimony from someone (or some family) at Victory Life Church. Each short video included our senior Pastor and a camera crew catching our subjects unaware. We called it a "home invasion". It was a lot if fun and heavily began for me at the beginning of march. For those of you who follow Life Church with Craig Groeschel, this series was inspired by them (they just have a whole lot more resources and people than I do so that's why I'm more impressed with our stuff). You can watch all the videos here: http://vimeo.com/victorylifebc/videos.

Amidst all of this, my family and I moved four weeks ago and a near tornado hit our new house just this week. So the work is not done for me. But life is good, and I'm really glad to be done with this series. It was a lot of work. A lot of late nights. But so worth it.

Gateway Conference

2011-02-23T17:39:00.001-08:00

Learned lots of great stuff this week at the Gateway Worship Conference. Very cool session called "Beyond the Veil". I might be sharing a condensed version of this at Victory Life soon. And by no means will it be the same as Zach Neese. In fact I won't even call it the same thing. But it will be cool.

Joshua 3:1-4

2011-02-21T02:50:00.000-08:00

So I had a little fun this week in After Effects again. I think I was able to take it to a whole new level, although I promise my loving beautiful wife that I will not AE for a week or so :) Anyways, here it is, I created an animation of Joshua 3:1-4. David Sunnock is the narrator and I totally ripped the character from Dan Stevers. I'm not selling this at all, just to make that perfectly clear, the originality of the character was not mine. This was totally for personal use. We did however use it in church this weekend because I was inspired by Pastor James' message last week when I thought about doing this, and I admit that I never would have finished if I didn't have a deadline. Give me your thoughts, I'd love to hear feedback.

Joshua 3:1-4 from Trent Walker on Vimeo.

Wow! Fun, now tired.

2011-02-15T20:19:00.001-08:00

Ok, seriously. I have the best group of individuals surrounding me as I lead worship at Victory Life Church every weekend! If you are a worship leader at your church and you don't feel this way about your team then I think I know why... It's because I have all the best ones!

I'm so pumped about the services at Victory Life this weekend.

And for real, if you don't feel the way that I do about your team, it can happen, and it will happen if you trust God with it. Matthew 9:37 says, "So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields".

So what are you waiting for? The best is yet to come!

Hide the Word of God in Your Heart

2011-02-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

My wife and I watch shows on Hulu.com all the time. Lately there's been one commercial that has caught our eye that we've really liked by Google Chrome. I don't really use this browser, but I admired the commercial as a really neat idea. You can view it here. Anyways, I created one for our church last night using After Effects and I think I did a pretty good job. What do you think?

Hide the Word of God in Your Heart from Trent Walker on Vimeo.

The Speed of Trust

2011-01-28T12:16:00.001-08:00

About to finish Stephen Covey's "The Speed of Trust". Phenomenal read! Totally changing my outlook on what it means to be a worship leader in the new era.

It's tough to tackle the roles of vision and administration in the areas of music, video, graphics and web. If you see yourself frustrated because you want to do more music but you can't because of your other responsibilities, then maybe you need to redefine what it means to be a worship leader. If you can become a person that people can trust - you can do great things. For me, I need to lead worship in all of these areas. This is the classic worship leaders argument dispelling the thought of worship=music. Except now the ball is really in the worship leaders court. If worship in a church setting is more than music, well my friend, it sounds to me like you've got a whole lot more on your plate to handle. You can either take what you've been given and let God bless it or you can ask God for less. Your choice.

Sanctity of Life

2011-01-20T19:12:00.001-08:00

So apparently I've been told by one of my readers, via twitter, that I need to start blogging again. I couldn't agree more. Thanks for the inspiration!

This week we had Ken Reynolds (kenreynolds.com) visiting Victory Life Church. Amazing! Lots of fun and totally stoked up the band. He is such an encouragement and a good friend to me. If you don't have his music you need to get it now! Pastor Duane always says the best guests are the ones that are nothing like you.

Worship Team open house was this past Tuesday. If you've read any of my other posts you'll find that I've just recently crossed over to a reformation of how we have done auditions in the past. Now with a new system, inspired by K-Rey actually, where we just invite people out to meet the team, worship with us, ask questions and check out how we do rehearsals. I like it much better so far.

Check out "The Miracle of Life" at hyperpixelsmedia.com. We will be airing this @victorylifebc this weekend for Sanctity of life week.

God is good, life is beautiful and so worth it.

Chopping wood in the rain

2010-09-11T09:00:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I feel I've earned my man-card for the day. I just spend a couple hours in the rain today chopping wood so that I can have a fire going in the fire place for my wife all winter. For those if you who do not live in Michigan, this is not something we have to do, most of us do have a furnace of some kind in our homes contrary to what you might think. And for those who do have fireplaces, they usually have a gas connection so that they don't have to cut their own firewood. And doing this in the rain doesn't usually work very well because the wood gets soft and harder to chop. Does this stop me? Not at all. It is a chance for me to breathe the fresh air, utilizing the strength God has given me to feel like I am on the set of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". But seriously, there's a trick to it. And it does feel good, but it requires very little strength at all, you've just got to let the momentum o the axe and the grain of the wood do all the work for you. Yes, you do need to physically be there even if it's in the rain. Life and ministry can be compared to this. To be completely honest, I could take no credit to the task of structuring a successful worship set. There is a trick to it, but that trick requires me only being there and letting the Holy Spirit do his work. I can get really tired and frustrated chopping wood if I don't hold the axe right or I hit the log in the wrong place. And I'll get far less accomplished. Likewise, ministry will burn you out if you're trying to do it on your own.

And for the analogy of doing this in the rain... Yeah, I don't have one because the truth is I've been procrastinating this summer and it's crunch time now. Back to work!

The Art of Engaging

2010-09-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Just officiated a wedding Saturday. It was beautiful. I get thinking of how most worship leaders are not perceived as "pastoral" enough to marry & bury. We probably bring this on ourselves. For me it's not about the title of "Worship Pastor", it's knowing that I not only have the unique task of engaging people in the act of worship on Sunday, but the art of engaging requires me to be active in the affairs of life with people in my church.

I'm grateful for the privilege to do the pastoral things that aren't related to leading others in singing songs. I think it gives me an advantage in the art of engaging others to worship.

Rain

2010-09-02T06:25:00.001-07:00

Two thoughts on this. You are one of two people in this world. Either you love it or you don't. Personally, I love rain. I love that when it's here, sure, I might not be able to mow my lawn, but there is peace in my soul. Like God speaks to me in that moment and says, "Stop what you are doing, and just breathe in the new life that I give".

Oh, and if you get the chance to stop to enjoy the rain, chai tea makes it a marvelous moment.

Community

2010-08-29T19:18:00.001-07:00

With all of the church leadership and growth books resources and conferences there are out there, nothing competes with the viral language of community. Basically, I want to go to this church because my friends are here. The spark of community happens when a group of people is doing something that I, whom am not in that group, want to be a part of, and then I am accepted.

I was at my drummers house yesterday for his son's birthday party and I thought of this, because he and I are friends. But I also feel friends with his friends even if I didn't know them. It's connectivity. This is how I should feel coming into your church. If it's my first time, I don't know you, but can I feel like I've known you for a long time, and would I want to be friends with you.

Now, the obvious write-off to all of this is saying that people should not be so selfish and shopper minded when coming into a church, but the reality is, people are and it's not their fault. Put yourself in their shoes. Have you heard the rumors about churches? They're weird, crazy people go there and this co-worker who invited me will probably reveal that they too are psycho. And frankly, I'm scared of what I might encounter, why did I come again? Truth is, that acceptance that you are so desperately trying to give, they're so desperately trying to find and they've worked up a lot of guts to step foot into your community.

Welcome to church.

Morning Dates

2010-08-28T10:10:00.001-07:00

Morning dates are rare for Siobhan and I, however we had one today and it was wonderful. In our season of life dates typically happen at night, and so does devotions for that matter. Ideally, routine time in a relationship is desired, but time is what's important. Spontaneous time is longed for, well-planned exclusive time is craved. You need all three.

Lunch with K-Rey

2010-08-18T11:05:00.001-07:00

Just finished up lunch with Ken Reynolds. Great man, great wisdom. We had Ken out to lead worship a few weeks ago and it reminded me the value of spending time learning from those who have gone before us in things. Today, Ken gave me the smack down on how I've been doing our auditions, and he's totally right. The way we're doing it has got to change Here's some of his helpful advice he gave:

1. Rather than having an audition night where people come in and showcase their talents, do an open house where new people are greeted and given a packet of audition material to which they can take home and bring back at a separate time, thus removing the intimidation and allowing people to get their feet wet.

2. Same for vocalist, but have them record themselves and submit a cd/mp3 (or cassette - really...) of themselves singing. Thus removing the awkward American Idol feel to the evening.

3. Have these packets available year-round so that the open house is not the only time that someone can get involved and at the same time letting you capitalize on the opportunities of capturing great musicians who want to get involved but you don't really want them to wait the four or five months until your next open house.

Great stuff from Ken Reynolds. www.kenreynolds.com

Envious

2010-06-03T12:45:00.000-07:00

Are we envious at the generosity of Christ? The one act of righteousness that we make is accepting the free gift of life in Jesus Christ. We then live to make the life of Christ known. We live by righteousness. Right living. So then those who are living wrong - wrong living - also have the promise of the righteousness if they choose to receive it. The generosity of Christ begs us to see those who live wrong as potential heirs to His throne even though the righteous have been right living for much longer. It makes us see that grace is not ours to boast. It's ours to receive.

Matthew 20:15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

http://read.ly/Matt20.15.NIV

MLB.tv

2010-05-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

Warning! This message is for full-time worship pastor's only: suffering from burn-out? Have a day off but can't get ministry off of your mind? Purchase MLB.tv and call me in the morning.

2010-05-12T17:29:00.001-07:00

Most times, the "four right chords", as third eye blind called it, don't really do it for me. It's a dichotomy that I wonder if more worship leaders out there deal with. There's always significant pressure to do the songs that everyone knows and everyone worships to because well, you're a worship leader. And for the most part there's a little less appreciation for the music than there is for the moment. And rightly so, but even then, if we knew how to inspire the arts a little more then maybe I could some different types of songs.

2010-05-11T08:26:00.001-07:00

Have you ever heard the saying, "shoot for the stars"? If I were an actor I don't think I'd like that saying. I really don't think that an actor says to themselves, "one day, at the pinnacle of my career, I'll be on 'dancing with the stars'". I just don't think that happens. That's like one step above starring in anything along side of Todd Bridges.

Seriously, don't just listen to an agent or anyone else telling you that something is good for your image. I turn down opportunities often protecting my dignity. It can pet my ego when I'm invited to things but I have to weigh it in the light of spending time with my family and doing what things are already a priority in my life. It allows the greatness of Christ in me rather than me being great. If the epidemy of my greatness is equivalent to dancing with the stars... No thanks.

2010-05-05T15:11:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while I get a little indifferent about the worship music setlist that I've prepared for the weekend. It's also bad when I have new musicians on for that particular weekend. I just look at them and say, "I have no clue where I'm going or what I'm doing. So just follow me, o won't let you down".

There's a lot of power in that worship set. In how it and you, as a worship leader, connect with people. It ought not be treated lightly. So I don't want anyone thinking that.

2010-05-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

Destiny. Could it be that we are living it right now? The bible says that the steps of the righteous are ordered by the Lord (http://read.ly/Ps37.23.NASB). Here's the funny thing about destiny, it really isn't what most people think of it as. There's a whole bunch of definitions that come up for this word, however the one I'm talking about is the one that refers to one's ultimate purpose in life and reason for why they live*. Rather than there being a whole lot of people out there that keeps striving for some illusive form of "greatness", I believe that greatness is found in those of us who are living everyday as a blessing from God. Those of us who are content knowing that today I will be great... to my wife, to my kids, to my boss and to my heart. I will be great in prayer, great in praise, great in passion.

On another note, my lawnmower works perfectly fine. I have no idea how. It's God. I got around to looking at it last night and started it up to see how long it would run before it just gave up steam again, and it kept going! I'm sure there's a very practical reason for this, like that the gasket sealer that I used the other day might not have dried long enough, and now that it's sat for a little while it all good. That could be, I don't know, can't prove it and don't want to. I choose to believe that in the simplest most non-weird way, God fixed my mower for me.

2010-05-03T11:32:00.001-07:00

Maybe today we should try something new. Instead of posting from my computer - I'm posting via SMS. I figured I'd give it a shot. Sometimes I'm not really in the mood to open up my computer and write (probably because it's too similar to work), but we'll try this technique out. Here's why I'm trying something new, I want to raise the bar, I want to be speaking life to a world out there that has ears to hear. I originally started this blog beacuse I felt that the people who really wanted to listen to me would come. It still is that way.

2010-04-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

Who are you leading today? Sometimes, I go through the whole day without the reality of that thought, yet even if I have very little contact with people in my day, the actions and thoughts I commit every minute either persuade me to persuade others toward the light of salvation or farther away. Like, right now. I'm taking a second out of my day to inspire myself by writing the pursuit of Christ in hope that I might inspire some.

Speaking of inspirations, Carlos Whittaker just released his new album Ragumuffin Soul today. I have yet to tell you if I like it, I'm not quite sure actually, I picked it up more for the reasons that I believe he is doing a remarkable job in current marketing trends. What I have heard, I like, and he's got quite the following. So, you too may want to check it out just because. @loswhit

2010-04-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those moments when you're bathing in the sense of your own accomplishment and partaking of the goodness that comes from doing something that not only would people not expect you to do, but you yourself would say, "how in the world am I going to accomplish that!"? And then, in the moment of your glory, as if you've built a tower from a deck of cards... It falls apart. It doesn't work. The accomplishment, the glory is snatched away from you. Have you ever had one of those moments? Well, I just had one of those moments. I fixed my riding lawnmower today. I got two strips into the lawn and then... Back to the drawing board. I'm begging to find some spiritual significance to this. And before Mr. Obvious decides to post what we all know to be the spiritual significance. Like me, don't we want to just sulk in our frustration a little bit. I mean, at least for me, that drives me.

2010-04-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

God really shows up in interesting ways. I mean we don't always need to look for his voice when we're sitting in our prayer closet. I do believe, however, that if you're not doing the prayer closet thing in some way shape or form then you might not actually be hearing voice of God. That part only comes through relationship. I took a few hours off of work today so that I could put a trailer hitch on the fam van with my dad. It might because of the relationship that I have with my loving earthly father that I can feel so close to my heavenly father right as I'm laying underneath my vehicle and my Dad went to grab some tools. I'm just so close to the heartbeat of God right now.

2010-04-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Inspiration. Do you think that the great Creator creates us new everyday? Hebrew 4:12 (http://read.ly/Heb4.12.NASB) There are times that I feel so inspired that I wake up from the inspiration and need to reflect or write or play guitar or just read my Bible as if to discover as I flip through the pages that I'm growing hotter towards the one burning scripture verse that has been burning a hole in my Bible dying for me to meditate on it.

Most times I don't feel that way. As if I'm a seed ready to sprout, but it's overcast and it's a cold day and I don't want to grow because, well, it's cold out there. But if I just rise anyway I may discover that the role of God is continually creating me new, and I don't understand it all, but I like it.

Here's something I wrote recently:

2010-04-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

Today: Work hard, play hard. I'm on a high after my mini-escape into the woods after my last post. There's really nothing like taking the word of God that literally. It's like saying, "I want to be like Christ, a reflection of who He is, so I'm going to escape to pray right now too." Sometimes in the business of things we forget to just step outside.

So, today I've got rehearsal with a freakin' awesome band and I just left a meeting with my financial adviser for my Roth IRA (sounds like an important thing - it is, but I didn't know what the meeting was about until I got there). Right now, I'm going to be like Jesus and eat a waterstreet waffle and have some heavenly grounds (of coffee, that is). I don't really know if Jesus had waffles, but if He did, he would crave these.

2010-04-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

I think, that I like getting my thoughts out, but often times I get my day out of alignment and then days turn to weeks and weeks to months and before I know it, my youngest is crawling, my Benny is potty training and my oldest can transform a transformer quicker than I. And I've let routine set in, rather than reflect. This morning I read in Luke 5:16 that Jesus would often slip away to pray. I think I'm going to do that right now.

2010-02-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog in a while, but I think I will write a little since I have a little more time today. Currently, I'm reading in 1 John with a group of team leaders at Victory Life Church, but I've got to say that there's almost a desire to read more than what's been handed out as a discipline. Unlike, practicing guitar, which after a certain about of time gets tiring, feeding your spirit is a hunger that can not be satiated. Here's some food for thought: "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God". I already come to my own conclusions on this, however does this mean that everyone who has the capacity to love is a Christian? Surely there is a dialog here...

2009-07-28T16:50:00.001-07:00

Truman Elliot Walker was born today at 5:19 pm. Weighing in at 8lbs. and 22" long. I'm now a proud Daddy of three boys! And Siobhan did so good. She gave birth so quickly that we had the baby in the tub and I delivered him! The midwife came about two minutes after the delivery.

2009-06-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be playing at Fairfax Community Church this weekend in Fairfax, Virginia. We'll be doing All Because of Jesus by Fee, Glory To God Forever by Fee (this will be the first time that I've ever lead this song), Hosanna by Paul Baloche, and New Creation (me - Reach the World version). Come on out!

2009-05-24T07:43:00.001-07:00

We're getting ready to launch our new website here at Victory Life Church. It's still quite a shell, but I have so many more options that I did with the last one. I'm on a time crunch because I don't really want to load any more stuff up to the old site, since it was such a big deal to do that and we have a big event that is happening on the 13th and 14th of June that's getting advertisement on the radio and all that jazz. Jeff Allen is coming that weekend. Check it out. Let me know what you think.

2009-03-10T08:08:00.001-07:00

Getting ready to go to the Reslife Leadership Conference next week. I'll be leading the opening song on Monday morning. I just got the recent Lee McDerment album and I love it! We'll be doing the song We Stand this weekend in church.

2009-02-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

February 22, 2009 - Setlist today included something a little different. It was myself, another guitarist, Siobhan on vocals, and a violinist. Songs were "Healing in the Water", "New Creation", "Beautiful Jesus" (by Christian Stanfill) and "You are So Good to Me" (Waterdeep). If you haven't heard it yet - Reach the World was released this past December and is available for purchase. It features some of the great songs we do at Victory Life Church as well as "New Creation" in full production format. Hope you like it!

2008-07-22T07:44:00.001-07:00

Siobhan and I just came back from Virginia. It was a good time to relax and refresh. I just posted some new pictures of the family and the recording. You can view more of the recording pictures here. Thanks to Washington Community Church for having us back for a Sunday. It was such a blessing. And thanks to Pastor David Jennings for doing a phenominal job on Sunday at Victory Life Church. I heard great things about it! If you missed the services at VLC be sure to watch it online this week.

2008-07-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who joined us in Grandville this past Sunday evening for the night of worship. It was huge fun! And I know that a bunch of you tuned in at victorylifebc.com, thanks. The album Reach the World is scheduled to be released in September.

The songs that I have coming up on the setlist at VLC in the near future from that album are, I Will Follow by Andrew Morris and Reach the World by Dan Clontz. I've gotten the chance to get to know both of these guys well over the past few months and I'm excited to support what God is doing in their lives. I've held off in putting Happy Day by Tim Hughes on the list simply because I wanted it to be tested a little more at some other places, but my guards are down now and I've put it too on the list. So there's a look at some of the new music you will be hearing at Victory Life Church.

In other news I heard that Pastor Brad Mitchell is taking the Senior Pastor role at Carolina Forest Community Church. Very cool! I'm so excited for you guys down there. Rock on!

And Siobhan and I will be visiting DC the weekend of the 20th of July. And we will be having the privilege of leading Washington Community Church in it's weekend services! I'm excited about that! If I had a camera to take - I'd Youtube it!

A friend of mine gave me some journal notes that he had taken on Worship Dynamics. His thoughts we intriguing. It was kind of like the seven "I's" of worship leading with a team. I'll see if he can link it to a comment here for the readers. I will however highlight one area that I resonated with a lot. It was this section that he titled Impartation. We could subtitle it the presentation of worship before the people. Psalm 40:3 outlines this statement well. Michael Gungor wrote a song called Our Legacy that has this scripture weaved in and out of it. But yeah, it's the climax before the end of the movie, the part where we as worship leaders step outside of what is written on the page so that we may engage people in the act of worship. I say that all the time. So many times we shoot for the Impact, which is the lasting result, without taking inventory as to whether or not, in the moment, we are engaging people. That's what you're up on that stage for, dude. Because we all know those wonderful times that we've planned for and written it all out on paper, but live, it didn't go the way we thought it would - well, here's why. You forgot to make the people a part of it.

At any rate, good thoughts on worship. I like it.

2008-06-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

O my gosh! Check out Pastor James' leg. He slid into third base at our softball game on Monday night. The only unfortunate thing is that he was called out! What a bummer he couldn't even justify the wound. I know I don't typically blog about this sort of thing. But I had to publish this.

2008-06-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

Our setlist today was Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew), You Saw Me (Hills), and New Creation. This was a proof positive day for doing a setlist that starts moderately soft and goes big. I believe that it's good to do this from time to time. But I also believe that consistency holds a huge value too. It's great to have the norm, and sometimes we have too much disdain for it. I'm a firm believer that to achieve success in whatever you do - one thing you don't do is continue to focus and try to strengthen your weaknesses. No, you build on what you do best and God will provide. I say that because of the argument of needing to keep things fresh. Yes, we do need to keep things fresh but if you as a worship leader do not thrive in the environment of starting soft - don't do it. Ours worked today. I admit it, but I don't do this type of change-up all the time because I never know when it's a wild pitch.

There's my rant on that. Hey, the Battle Creek Cereal Festival was great fun. If you missed it - you missed out. There's a lot of improvements they could make, but all in all - good event. Definitely plan on help out next year. I think that there ought to have been twice as many Victory Life-ers there, but for our first time, we did have a ton of people show up! Rock on VLC! I think there were about 70+ in all. I don't know how many people were at the event, but I would not be far off if I said 15,000. We'll see if I can put up some video of the event next week.

2008-06-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

This Saturday Victory Life Church is going to be volunteering at the Battle Creek Cereal Festival.
Apparently this used to be a huge event, but it has had a change of hands over the past few years giving it a lack of identity in the community. We are happy that the Arts and Industry Council is now overseeing this event, but no fault of theirs, they were officially handed this event very last minute. So Pastor James and I approached the council about how we can just lend a hand. Pretty cool, we figure hey the city needs some help because they were handed the baton a little late, we might not be able to do much, but we can get a bunch of volunteers. As so we did. This meeting was three weeks ago, and now we have over seventy-five people signed up to come help do clean-up at the event this weekend. My only frustration, as is the A&I Council's as well, is that they really didn't have enough time to do any significant advertising for the event. So, it will pretty much be only the people who have come to previous events. But if you happen to come across this blog in an engine search and you live in the Battle Creek, Marshall or Kalamazoo area, come on out to the festival this coming Saturday morning in downtown right along Michigan Avenue. I hope to do some cool video's with this event.

2008-05-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Planetshakers Free is a pretty cool album. A definite purchase if you want to incorporate a more youthful sound into your worship set. I get the feeling that all worship leaders do want to incorporate more of a youthful sound into the worship set and yet most do not because we're still too busy trying to figure out how to fit the next hymn in there and still make it sound cohesive.

However, if you do want to incorporate some hymns into the set, then Gateway Worship's new album Wake Up the World has a pretty neat rendition of the Doxology. I am a little disappointed at the lack of creativity these albums have, and at the same time I do really enjoy the availability that both of these albums lend to service use. I mean, when Israel Houghton and New Breed came out with Another Level it was cool, yeah, but nobody could play it. It wasn't - shall we say, "user-friendly" to worship teams. But these albums are, and the only herdle that most of us have to jump is the inevitable war that will ensue should you choose to bring your electric guitarist up front and rock in church. Hey, I do it every week. Oh, by the way I forgot to mention how Gateway Worship has all of their charts to the album on their website. I think that is great. I guess they got sick of me calling them for charts in their CFNI days. Our setlist this coming Sunday is Real (off of the Gateway album), My Savior Lives (New Life) and Everything (Tim Hughes).

2008-05-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

I'd like to draw attention to 2 Chronicles 5:13 today, for those of us who are in the roll of leading worship in our churches. There is so much confusion as to what exactly a worship song is today, with the fact that mainstream artists are composing album pitched as worship albums. I always fall back on the idea that I would like the songs that we are doing in our church to be "congregational" or what I often say is, "it's gotta sing". I have no problem when it comes to performing songs in church with the intention of highlighting the message or even just to break the ice and get people to come in and have fun. But when it comes to the worship set, I believe it should be our intention to engage the people of the church to join in the song of praise. Read the verse and you'll see where I'm coming from.

Here's something newsworthy. My good friend and mentor Curt Coffield just recently welcomed a new baby boy into their family yesterday. I'm so happy for them and can't wait to see the little buddy!

Albums I picked up this week were Planetshaker's Free and Gateway Worship's Wake Up the World. I'll let you know what I think about them in the next blog.

2008-05-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

I recently had a rehearsal for the song New Creation that will be on the recording that I mentioned in my May 1 blog. Mike Popenhagen (worship leader at Resurrection Life Church Richland (rlc.info) and I wrote this song together. The collaboration of it was really fun, and the finished product was successful. The more I write with other people the more I find that we may not come up with a finished song right away, however, when you don't you just keep pressing on. I'm writing with another worship leader friend of mine around here and we can't quite get our heads around the chorus - good song - but still unfinished.

Here's a first round version of New Creation. This one was recorded live at Richland by Mike Popenhagen. I hear they are doing it a little differently than that now. I'm doing it a little different than this too, ours is much more upbeat at the beginning. The version that will be done on the recording is very cool, not exactly what I had in mind - but very cool, I guess that's why they know what they're doing up there in Grandville.

A bunch of you from Victory Life Church have asked how to get a recording of the music from the services. My statement on that is and has always been that I don't give out or sell the music we do on Sunday mornings for three reasons. One, there are royalty restrictions involved with doing that and although CCLI does allow for five dollar donations for recorded music services, my number two and three reasons hold up more weight. Two, the "directly-off-of-the-sound-board-to-CD " quality is never going to be that great, and I don't really like to be releasing that type of quality. And three, (and this is really the main reason) someone was inspired by God and put their effort forth to record a great version of those specific songs. So, I tell people all the time - buy the album that the song is on! I have a link list to the right of this blog of my current albums that I'm listening to. Often, I will talk about the music that we are doing and I'll link to it for the purposes of supporting those artists. So there it is, buy their music, it's worth your cash. If I keep up with this standard then maybe someday the music that we do on Sunday morning that I write will show up on some recording somewhere. Hey, you never know. But I'm purist when it comes to giving honor where honor is due.

2008-05-01T09:49:00.000-07:00

Chad, things have been great! I hope that everything is going well in Australia!

We're gearing up here for a worship night on the 17th of May and I'm calling it a worship concert. It is in line with the last blog that I wrote on here, however, I wanted to do one first without the raising funds part, just to get us acquainted with doing a worship night. It's a big deal if you do it right. By that, I mean that if you choose to not have childcare then you're not going to have as many people as you would like simply because parents often can't find childcare on their own, and a worship night, unfortunately, is usually not incentive enough for parents to do that, myself included. If you do have childcare, then you need to buy-in from the whole church team basically. And that's why it's such a big deal. I'm excited about it though.

Also, I've been invited to write and lead a song for an upcoming project held at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, MI. I believe the live date will be on June 29. So I'll keep everyone posted about it because it will more than likely air live on the Internet through their website.

2008-02-21T07:58:00.001-08:00

It's been too long...

I've been off of this blog for two months now. I know, I know - that's terrible of me. I've been doing a little more in my mind in the way of how I am approaching ministry and needed to sort a few things out. I'm not quite there yet, but I have a feeling that I'm a little more confident to write again without feeling like I'm just using this for a personal picture post and update for my family (although that's not bad). Leah and Leon thanks for your comments on the last blog, I haven't been avoiding you. It's great to hear from you! For all who are wondering though - Victory Life Church is awesome - we love being here and wouldn't change it for the world.

I just got back from a conference this week that really inspired me to rethink again why I do what I do (I'm sure that's a good thing to do from time to time). Being in a church that is growing and thriving can also be numbing at times (not to mention the fact that it's been below zero), numbing in the way that we try to keep up with the service and can overlook the heart of the matter. I've been so challenged in my heart about certain things, like - why would I do a worship night? I know that's silly, because we all deeply desire times of refreshing and prostrating ourselves before God and singing, saying and praying that His will be done in our lives. But I guess I've just been searching for ways where that act of worship to God can be translated beyond the walls that keep the music and the sound of worship internal. Chris Joyner did something one time that I thought was really cool and I said, "I'd like to do that sometime". He doesn't know how much I admire him for his heart in this, but maybe he'll read about it. He lead worship for an event at a church in the Falls Church area of VA that raised awareness for an organization called IJM (International Justice Mission). I just thought that was the coolest thing, because in my little world of christiandom worship I always thought the natural progression was have a worship night; have an experience with God that would shake the earth; take up an offering to do an album; sell the album at your local church to raise awareness of the unity of your worship team and the cool music at your church; sing the news song in your Sunday service; be done with the event and start working on the next one. And all of that seems really internal. Of course, we all know that we did that or do that with the truly genuine heart that believes we are impacting those around us, because look at Hillsong.

What I'm leading to is finding ways where we can make more of an impact on our world around us. I'm considering now doing what at one time said I would like to do. I think we are going to host a worship concert here and I want to bless something in our city financially from it. Take up an offering for the local fire department, the local police department. Have a visible presence of some charitable organization there while you worship. Be a conduit for impacting the world around you.

This is somewhat of the heart issues I've been dealing with. I want to be a man after God's heart, I really do. I'm just realizing more and more that His heart is for the lost, broken and abused.

2007-12-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

Last night I put Camden down for bed, and after praying with him I told him that if he wakes up in the middle of the night he doesn't need to call out for daddy if he's scared he can just call on Jesus and He will comfort him back to sleep. You see, every night now for the last few weeks Camden has been waking up to get me or mommy at 3:50am. He's only been off once and that was like 3:40am. I've stayed up to listen if he's waking up from some sound or something... nope. Anyways, he woke up last night, like usual and stood by his gate (if I don't put the gate up, he'll sneak downstairs to the refrigerator, and then start crying), and he goes, "Mommy... mommy... pause... Jesus..."

They soak up so much. He remembers everything that I tell him now. Like when I said that he can call on the name of Jesus. Faith like a child - sometimes all we need to do is call on the name of Jesus. This usually becomes our last resort. We don't quite know why, but God is never disappointed in us when during our fear we call out to him.

In other news, we are still living out of boxes and in the grace of God up here. We love it here, it's a winter wonderland! The snow was falling so thick on Sunday it looked like soap suds coming out of the sky. Bennett rolled over for the first time today. He turned five months old last week!

Because our norm is non-existent at this point I apologize that we have sent out a Christmas card, but to all who read - Merry Christmas from the Walker Family!

2007-12-07T17:06:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday our setlist was We Shine, I'm Not Ashamed, and Agnus Dei. And we played to a click for the first time. Every comment I heard had something to do with how everyone sounded so tight. I've got to give some props to our drummer for being able to hang with it. They have the most difficult time with it of course. But I tell you what, once you do it, you won't want to ever go back. Let me also explain that this has been about six weeks in the making, and we're still not out the water yet, we've got some more people to get on board with it.

2007-11-20T06:39:00.000-08:00

New album to get - Everyone Overcome by Desperation Band. In 2007 some of my favorite songs in our worship sets were My Savior Lives, I Am Free, Rescue, King of All Glory, Everyone (Praises), and I'm Coming Your Way. All of these are from New Life Church. I think I've been pumping up the Hillsong United stuff for so long, but this is stuff is really good too. Worth checking out and definitely worth incorporating into your set. It's funny too, because in all our moving and craziness, I didn't even know they had a new CD out! Melody in MB asked me about it.

Overcome has a really good track on it where (If it was done on video live, I'm sure it would have been a really cool element) they have short little "overcome" testimonials in the middle of the song which catapults the listener into this totally inspired state of worship afterwards. You've just got to here it for yourself. I also like the song I'm Counting On God for it's edge and clever rhythms. All in all, my first listen was a little disappointing for the first five tracks, because in comparison to Hills the lyrical content of the first half of this album is about as intelligent as a bucket or the lyrical content of I Am Free (whichever you prefer... but hey people love that song so whatever). Anyways, my point is the rest of the album does have great lyrical content like I'm Pleasing to You, and the second time I listened to it I loved it (the album)! sometimes I tear projects like this one apart too much. Chances are, there will be a song that I don't really care for on this album that I'll end up doing in church all the time like I Will Boast (wait, where did that come from).

Summary, if you like Brooke Fraser's stuff and you like songs like King of all Glory you will love this project.

2007-11-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

We started out our service with a Walk This Way jam - Aerosmith's version, this week.

Yeah, I now that's a sinner song, but it rocked and it was a lot of fun. And oh yeah, Senior Pastor's love it when you can intro their message with a bunch of energy. I just couldn't think of a better way. Besides, I owe it all to Anthony and Mike in Myrtle Beach for turning me into an electric guitar lover.

For all those churches out there who are still just doing the piano thing, don't bother yourself with pulling out the acoustic guitar for a new sound. Because the world is playing Guitar Hero now and they love it.

We also did I'm Not Ashamed, Holy is the Lord (diggin' back a little), Revelation Song, and Hosanna (Brooke Fraser).

I'm Not Ashamed went really well, I was quite impressed with Caleb Sunnock for attacking the electric parts. We're also still in the process of getting comfortable with in-ears. We're going to try something new this week. We were using the ART head tap of which we've fried two of those (don't use these if you are pushing a ton of amps to your floor wedges). We're going to try the Rolls PM50s personal monitor amp this week and see how it holds up. I'll let you know.

Hey, the kids are great. Siobhan is great. We are loving life right now! I'm sitting in the Olive Tree Cafe at the grandville reslife campus and I've just realized that every church needs it's own restaurant! That would be so cool. Alright maybe not. But this place is pretty cool. It's like it's own little world up here. I came up to meet someone for lunch and ended up staying because I like the vibe. And they have wi-fi (which every church does need to have).

2007-10-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

I want to apologize right away to all of you that we did not get the chance to see this week while we were in Myrtle Beach, we had a very short time and needed to get our house moved. But for those of you that we did see, thanks so much for your friendship and love we will miss you dearly. We are now moved into the house that we are living in for free (thanks God), until we sell or rent the house in MB. I'm so excited about that!

On another note, check out what Elevation Church (Charlotte, NC) did last week. This is so relvolutionary and so cool, I'm not going to tell you about it because you have to see for yourself. Some of you might already know what they did, but I just got done moved this week and I've been a bit behind. But watch the service, what they did was actually two Sunday's ago, but I think you'll get a pretty clear picture just by listening to this past Sunday's service.

Tomorrow our setlist is: Glorious One by Steve Fee, Forever by Chris Tomlin, and Hosanna by Brooke Fraser (Hillsong United).

I'll let you know how it goes.

2007-10-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Glorious One

We did this new song by Steve Fee this past weekend. After we sang it, I shared a little bit from Matthew chapter 11. John the Baptist is getting a little unsure if Jesus is really the Christ, and Jesus replies by saying, "The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor." He truly is glorious. How often do we come in contact with someone who just doesn't know about this whole Christianity thing, and in our day is more than likely thinking that our 'religion' is no different than that other one over there? How often do we reiterate our faith that believes that - still today - Jesus does these things, and no other god can or will? Or are we somewhere back in the nether regions of our mind thinking, "God really can't be that glorious, can He?"

Just food for thought, I tend to be a big fan of putting into practice the songs I sing... isn't that weird...

BTW - this album, Burn for You, has a lot of very cool songs that you could implement into your worship set if you are ok letting the electric guitar come up front a bit, a definite worthwhile purchase in my opinion. One of the songs that I want to do but haven't yet is We Shine.

2007-09-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks CFCC.

Wow! What can I say? We've been so blessed by the people of Carolina Forest that it's hard to leave. From the worship team and the staff to lifegroups, I am humbled that we had the opportunity to be a part of what God is doing in the Forest.

Siobhan and I arrived safely in Michigan a week ago Thursday after a lot of driving! We've been taking some time to relax before I start work at Victory Life (I have my own office!). We went to a little town called Frankenmuth, which is about an hour north of Detroit. It's basically a little North Pole. The whole town has a bavarian theme. I'd post some pictures, but I'm writing this on my new Iphone (how cool is that, I had to slip that in here somehow) and I don't have those pictures on here. It was a great time for Siobhan and I to just get away and enjoy life a little.

To everyone in the forest, we miss you dearly and pray for you often. Someone in Battle Creek has offered us a place to stay for free until something happens with our house in bellegrove. So that's awesome. That means our family of four doesn't have to bum off of my parents anymore. And it also means that we don't have to drive an hour and fifteen minutes each way!

Our first Sunday was yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable it seemed everyone felt with us. Siobhan led the song Revelation Song and it was so powerful! If you're curious to know more about it you can find it at www.gatewayworship.com made popular by Kari Jobe.

I'll keep everyone up to date with what's happening I our neck of the woods. Two things to leave you with: 1. If you haven't picked up a copy of Savior King by Hillsong you don't know what you're missing. 2. My new cell number is 269-589-9714.

God bless

2007-09-22T05:27:00.000-07:00

C'mon is this not the cutest baby!

2007-09-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

How is God blessing you?

This is from a Franciscan Benediction that I got off of Life Church's website

2007-09-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so now I come out of hiding from this blog. I've been battling one of the hardest decisions of my life so far. This has been equally as hard for Siobhan too. We have made some good friends down here in Myrtle Beach and have truly enjoyed our time worshiping with Carolina Forest Community Church. This is so unlike us - but we feel this is the best move now for our family and we are very excited about it. At the same time very sad to leave our friends here. What I'm talking about is the new position I have accepted at Victory Life Church in Battle Creek, MI. I'll write a little more about it at a later time. Because there are still many of you in Texas and in Virginia that are just now finding this out. I can tell you that this has been wept over with many tears and conversations with people I love and trust and look up to. But yeah, this is a huge step of faith for us, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. Bennett is getting so big and chunky, it's such a blast seeing him grow. Camden spent a week with his Nonnie and Doo in Virginia without us. I was a wreck - I love my family. Siobhan and I were looking forward to a trip to Boston this fall that we bought plane tickets for. We're not going to be able to go anymore. I wished I would have planned a little better for that, however I wanted to honor CFCC by letting them decide when they thought best to make this transition.

2007-08-13T08:30:00.001-07:00

Here's an updated picture of Bennett James. He's now one month old! Can you believe how quickly time flies by. I'm reminded today of how valuable time is because of this little smile. I may be singing to the hearts of many who are thirsty for a touch from God, but if I miss these little moments using God as an excuse what a terrible man I would be. It's important in life to have balance. To say no to things that we may enjoy doing, but in the long run won't have an eternal impact on some one's life. And I do mean this in the context of ministry. Because if I'm off doing rehearsals and services all the time and give my family very little of it - then I'm just encouraging and leading a whole lot of people into how to not lead your family to Christ. Simply said - we all need God's help in making sure that we keep the main thing the main thing. Ephesians 6:13-18 in the Message Bible is a good encouragement for today. I pray that you'll be blessed by it.

2007-08-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

All of the new albums are coming out in the next month. Now, I don't know if you are a big Lenny LeBlanc fan (most recently popular know for writing Above All with Paul Baloche), but if you are his new album All for Love just came out and was promoted by Integrity for the latest worship album push. Great album - although my wife and I still love his album Above All the best. If we start doing any of his songs at the church I'll let you know.

Also, Paul Baloche, Israel Houghton and Hillsongs are all coming out with new releases next month. Israel and New Breed have guest Jonny Lang on this new album. I would love to get my hands on that before the September 4 release date!

2007-07-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

Bennett James Walker - born at 2:37am on July 11, 2007! Here he is everyone. I'm such a happy daddy! He was 7lbs and a half an ounce at birth and 19 inches long. He was six days early.

Here is Mommy and Daddy and Bennett. Siobhan went into the hospital at about 1:00am and an hour and a half later he was born. She didn't take any pain medication either. I am so proud of her!

My mother-in-law, Shannon, was there too. Siobhan had a couple of days of early labor contractions so her mom ended up coming on Sunday. Good thing though, because Bennett was born on Wednesday and she originally wasn't going to come until Thursday.

Shannon stayed at home with Camden while we were at the hospital (Camden went to stay with Bonnie and Baylee Keels while Siobhan, Shannon and Myself were in the delivery room). She brought him to the hospital the next day so that he could see his new baby brother. Here he is giving Bennett kisses.

I love this picture! Because he's got his eyes open and he's looking at Siobhan. He was so curious and calm when I took this. It was like he was saying, "Are you my mommy?"

2007-06-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday service was a wonderful surprise!

We had a situation come up because out of our two drummers one was out of town and the other (Stephen - or as my son calls him, Sandi!) had sprained his right ankle pretty bad and couldn't play. It's funny the things that travel through a leader's mind. I remembered one time in Michigan showing up to church on a Sunday morning in the middle of a blizzard (I was an intern so I had to be there and be there early). Well, I remembered hearing the Pastor say, "I hope people come because we've got to pay the electric bill this week. And please don't take this as a slam to that Pastor, because he has in mind the business of the kingdom and although we would like to believe that our leaders live in a land above those things, that's just not realistic. I admit that hearing him say that was such a good thing for me to hear, because he became a real person to me. If he would have said something superficial like, "If just one person comes then it was all worth it," Although that's true, and I would definitely have respected that, I can't help but laugh at the fact that when leaders are presented with a challenge many times we just go into leader mode. Like this week, I had compassion for Stephen because of his foot for about one minute and then in my mind I said, "What are we going to do for drums this week?" I'm just being honest here now. And please don't misinterpret this like some would do to say that I am just selfish not caring for the interests of others, because that's just not true. At any rate, Stephen was not able to play drums however, but Ty, one of my other musicians who plays bass, stepped up to the plate and did a phenomenal job on the drums. Siobhan told me later that he did such a good job he should play again. I would love that if it wasn't for the fact that we need bassist too.

The musicians and singers that I work with week in and week out are such a blessing. I love leading worship with people who know what it means to bring an excellent praise before God. Like the old testament worshipers in 1 Chronicles 25:7 where it says the musicians were skilled and trained in music for the Lord. I like that for the Lord part.

2007-06-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

Psalm 95 begins by saying, "Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation." I shared this past Sunday morning about how real this verse became to me this weekend. I read it and was so encouraged by the call of it. The invitation that it begs. I am encouraged to share this with my readers because I'm always challenging myself with the participation aspect of leading worship. I do know of many worship leaders who take this a little to far. But that's unfortunate that some of us have written off encouraging engagement of the people in the congregation altogether because of these people. Leading worship is all about engaging people. The art of it says, "Am I being the instrument of God to lead His people to 'taste and see that the Lord is good?'" At any rate, I shared this scripture to bring light to the fact that King David said himself. "Come" and let us sing and shout to the rock of our salvation. That's awesome!

Here's a good CD for your worship library if you haven't gotten it already. It's called "My Savior Lives" by New Life Worship. They've got a sample video online that I thought was pretty cool. It's the song King of All Glory - which is a song that we've have been doing alot of here a Carolina Forest. We've also been doing My Savior Lives, Everyone, and Your Name. Check out their video here.

God bless,
-Trent

2007-06-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

Why are we here? I feel that we should often ask ourselves this question. Especially, in this context of worship music. I don't believe that it should be a stumbling point to us, putting ourselves in the attitude that leads us to be double-minded like what we read in James. But I believe that if we ask this question with the intent of continuing to strive and aim toward pleasing the heart of God, then we lay everything out on the table and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us about the things that we need to let go of and the things that we need to put our focus back on.

Ok, so that was a long sentence that I feel I might need to explain. Just recently a friend of mine shared his frustrations with me about things pertaining to the worship team he was a part of. He, not being too happy with the current music, proceeded to look into the Bible to see for himself if playing music in a church service was even a Biblical thing to do or if it was something that we just do out of tradition. He told me himself that he knew that he would not find or prove something that He didn't already know, and that's just what happened. His story is not to far of a cry from many of us. Have any of you ever been singing along with the praise and worship music in a church and not "felt" anything? Maybe you've asked yourself, "Why am I doing this?" Fortunately, we have the word of God as our command to put to rest any reasoning in or out of the 'why'. I could list a whole bunch of commandments in the Bible, but I'll only list the one that comes to mind right now which is Ephesians 5:19. Off the subject, you could pick that verse apart so much. But here's the deal, we are a people who respond to purpose, passion and are mobilized by righteous vision. Commandments, though we obey them, don't inspire us. The apostle Paul spoke of this when he spoke of how grace is a much higher commandment (Romans 5). Like singing, if we do simply because we have to, how motivating is that to those who do not know Christ? Not very. How pleasing is that to the heart of God? Not at all. Matthew 5:18 says "These people please me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." What I'm saying is that we have got to continue to remember why we sing these songs, why we come together to give praises to God in a corporate setting. And so I ask that question to the reader. Why are you singing? Why do you even come to church? Do you know or have you gotten into the rut that the enemy would love for us to get into which is complacency? When I ask these questions to myself, I'm challenged to say, "God, bring me back to my first love, restore to me the joy of my salvation." And if you are having a hard time with things still, then make it easy on yourself and let God take control.

On a lighter note, I've been challenged lately to bring back some simplicity to our music set with the intentions of letting the heart of worship come forward. A great CD for your worship library is called "Overflow" by Lancaster County Bible Church with Matt Goss.
We are currently doing the song "Beautiful Mystery" and it's such a great tune to incorporate into your set. We are also doing "Rescue" which is a Jared Anderson tune with Desperation Band at New Life Church in Colorado, but we didn't start doing it until I heard it on this CD. It's not all hype and phenomenal music it's just something that I keep wanting to listen to because I feel like it allows me to focus on God and not so much the music. And that's a good thing.

Until later,
-Trent

2007-06-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Our God is a consuming fire.
I shared a couple of weeks ago, before we sang the chorus to "Awesome God" by Rich Mullins, the account of the Israelites and their description of the mountain of God, which was called Sinai*. I love how God is portrayed by the Israelites as so terrifying and mysterious, simply because a believe there is a lack of the fear of God in our culture today. The story in Exodus tells us that the leaders of Israel came to Moses and said, "Speak to God, yourself, mediate for us because God is too scary for us (this is my own interpretation)." Yeah, God is spectacular - He is indescribable, but terrifying? Hebrews 12:18-24 says: For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, "IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED." And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, "I AM FULL OF FEAR and trembling." But you have come to Mount Zion and to... Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant...

It's always my desire that people be edified and lifted in their spirit during a corporate time of worship, but I do believe we need to be people of action in our faith. Not just singers of songs moved by every wave of dynamics that brings us to our knees. God puts a high value on sanctification (holiness or being set apart). So much so that He send His only son to die for us, to give us His sanctification. We need to wear it. Righteousness is key. Let's flip this coin. Righteous, set apart, holy and dry? Have you ever felt that way? "God, I'm doing the right things, but I don't feel anything, and yeah, I know that this walk with you isn't about feeling, but now that I've come to that conclusion and found that You alone are God and I am Your child no matter what... could You comfort me, be near me, embrace my heart like The Lover of my Soul that You are?" God is an awesome God, and this entire epic story that He so masterfully designed with His bride being a pinnacle portion of His glory begs us to desire His heart and that we be in tune with Him. Singing songs, for the sancifi-ed-ly stale, has always been such a trite gesture of our faith and the older culture of people who desire hymns for their content don't understand the youthful generation of people who love to "feel" the music. Here's my solution, before I ramble on too long. For those of you who do not understand why we seem so stale and dry, but might get knocked over yourself should a spiritual storm come your way - dig deep into the richness of your faith through the depth of another's words and lyrics. Don't compromise integrity and relegate your faith to a feeling during a corporate worship setting. For those on the other side. Put down your pride of movement and be willing to let God take control of everything - even your lips. For that's what the first church did in Acts chapter two.

God bless,
-Trent

*No one really knows today where the biblical mountain of Sinai is, their is the traditional location, however there are contradictions that surround that location. For further study, I would encourage readers to pick up a copy of the Archaeological Study Bible by Dr. Duane Garrett, Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr. I'm sure that Jesus Bookstore in Hybla Valley - VA, Word Shop Bookstore at Resurrection Life Church - MI, and Lifeway Christian Store near Coastal Grand Mall - SC all have this Bible available. It's a phenomenal bible for study.

2007-06-04T21:50:00.001-07:00

This is the first time that I've blogged since we've been here in Myrtle Beach, SC. The worship culture here is very different, and yet at the same time the heart and soul of every believer is to touch the heart of God. I guess I say that the culture is different because there's not as much pressure here to lead a worship service in a way that I don't do excellently (ie. gospel). Not that there's anything wrong with gospel or soul music. It's just that I don't feel like I lead well in this style. James Fontenot back in Alexandria could vouch for that. On the flip side, the push to make things "non-churchy" so as to reach those who are still seeking but have not made the leap of confession of their faith is a little overwhelming a times. Whereas, at WCC, I wasn't as mindful of things like that. Not that I ever led worship at WCC in an "offensive to non-believer's" way, and not that we are scared here of "offending" people. I think that's one of Pastor Shonn's greatest gifts (ha, ha). No, but seriously, he has said before that his desire is to bring people in to a comfortable setting so that they may hear a dangerous message. The Bible says in James chapter 2:1-12 that we are not to show favoritism and I would like to think that it means even more than what we would read at face value. I guess what I'm trying to say is when it comes to being ourselves and down-to-earth and real loving people, we shouldn't be any different to people because they are or aren't Christian. We should be real enough (that means that people don't want to feel like we have an agenda for them) so that Christian and Non-Christian alike will want to be around us. However, there is no "dumbing-down" the power of the cross and the fact that Jesus is the stumbling block to all generations.
Now, I realize that for many of you this might take a while to pray over and see where I'm coming from. And that's ok - I'm still discovering my place in this balance too.

God bless, I'll write again soon.

2006-11-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

Preparation

I wanted to give an encouragement to all of you this week about preparation. Specifically about preparation for the coming season. It's usually at this time that we start to see all of the Christmas garb cluttered throughout the stores and the most unlikely of places selling whatever they can to make a buck for the holidays. My father-in-law told me about the 50" Plasma flat-screen they are selling at none other than the Home Depot. I thought that was a do-it-yourself store, not BestBuy! At any rate, what I'm talking about is preparation, but on a spiritual level. Before we get caught up in the craziness of this season we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, "Why?". Ask it in a quiet place so that we can understand the depth of God's love for us. If we walk through this Christmas and forget to ask God why we have been given another year, family, opportunity, love and hope... if we do this and forget to ask why, then we forget the answer to the why that the world longs to know. In John 19 we read about the crucifixion of Jesus. Did you know that the savior of the world, the One whose coming (birth) marks the celebration of Christmas, was murdered on a holiday weekend? The passover was a big deal in Jewish culture it was their Independance Day, so to speak, but on a much larger, more Christmas-like, scale. The bible calls the day that He was crucified the Day of Preparation, it was Friday before the Passover. It's the third week of November now - kinda like the preparation month for Christmas. Jesus already paid the price of dying on the cross for the sins of the world once and He not going to do it again, however He has said that He is coming back again to redeem those who are in Him. Are we prepared? John the baptist said, "Prepare the way of the Lord" (a) about Jesus' first coming. My request of the reader is this. That we prepare our hearts to hear from God this season. That we prepare ahead of time and plan to be still before the Lord. Enjoy the reason why He came and be thankful for all He has done. But please, do not come to January and realize that you have missed an opportunity to hear what God is saying to you now. I believe there is something special during this season, that our hearts and the hearts of people worldwide are somehow more in tune to being receptive to Christ's redemptive work. There is something special about the holiday's. Don't let them pass you by.

(a) - Mark 1:3

2006-11-08T09:56:00.000-08:00

Again I Say Rejoice

Wow! Sunday was great wasn't it! Hey, if you want to hear it again you can't, sorry, but you can get Israel Houghton's album with it on there. The album is called "Another Level". Great album - powerful message with a new sound of soul. You've heard some of his stuff before at WCC. But, I don't do it justice - you've got to hear it for yourself!

Colossians 1:27 says that Christ is in you. I encourage you to read this passage carefully. One of the things that I want to highlight today is our realiztion of that in regards to how we approach church. If you've found yourself struggling with the time to get to rehearsal or even get to church on time, maybe this message is for you.

When I was 23, I was working full-time at Starbucks. Even then I understood the reality of "Christ in me", because I recognized that if I didn't show up to church on time and be there when I said I would be there, then there would be no one else to be a personal representation of Christ in the church (besides Pastor Steve, but I'm talking worship team). You see, we seem to be under a false cloud that looms above us making it seem that everything needs to be done by the Pastor. We all know this isn't true, but has this truth taken root inside of us yet. I wasn't getting paid then. Yet I still gave it my all. From the choir to the A/V - band to leaders, we all need to realize that one person can not do it all. We are the body of Christ, but if one person doesn't show - then the "Christ in me" part hasn't gotten deep into some people yet. We exist to help others worship. Maybe I should change the phrase to "this thing will not happen without you". God wants every part. I believe that I have shown you by example that we need to lay our lives down for the sake of the call. This passage says, "So that we may present everyone perfect in Christ". We are working towards something. Something much greater than we have cared to let ourselves imagine in a while. The apostle Paul said that he struggles and labors for the sake of ministry, but (now get this) he struggles with all of Christ's energy for the church. For the lost. Give this ministry of worship music your all this week, and I know for a fact that God will work powerfully in you.

2006-10-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Psalm 34:1-3 "I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together."

I would say that this paints the picture of what our current praise and worship music culture should be. This is, by far, the main purpose why we celebrate each Sunday morning and Wednesday evening. I feel as if I should be saying that every time we begin, "Let us exalt his name together." What an awesome name! Jesus. If you get the chance, read verse eight of this chapter.

This past Sunday (the 22nd) was tough in the first service. I definitely desire the days when we don't notice when people come in with the pressures of the world on their shoulder, and if the do it won't make a difference because the attitude and atmosphere in the place is filled with joy and thanksgiving and praise and all the weight of the world can't hold up a candle to the presence of God in the place. We sang a new song called "Revelation Song" this Sunday. For further listening buy Gateway Worship's new CD called "Living for You". If you can't buy it at Jesus Bookstore then I know for a fact that you can get it on itunes. Definitely worth the buy. If you were touched by the music on Sunday then you'll be totally swept away in the passion of this album.

Last week, I didn't get the chance to update this blog. I had planned something special (which I had mentioned the week before) so I want to add it to this posting. James has been leading worship a lot lately. It's my desire to see that his voice is heard on this blog too. So, before I left for California, we sat down and had a chat about worship stuff. Just as simple as that. It was great. We recorded it for you to listen to and also have the transcript up online to view also.

Click here to listen to the mp3

Click here to read the conversation.

2006-10-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

I need to throw some props out to Ben (plays drums with us at WCC). Ben has been diligently paving the way for muscians to connect in the DC area through a website called Bandbo.com. If you have not seen it yet - you need to check it out. He's got some great ideas brewing through this site and last Tuesday after rehearsal, he split to go to one of his Bandbo.com sponsered concerts. I heard it was great. Maybe someday soon, I'll show up for support. But right now I can at least let everyone know how proud of him I am for doing this. I know this blog is designed for talking about "Beyond Sunday Morning" things, but I'm going to take the opportunity to brag about the people who make what we do on Sunday mornings happen!

Anyways, check out the news buzz about Ben and his site by clicking this link to On Tap Magazine.

2006-10-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, wow! What a week. Sorry, I haven't been updating this like I should. Kinda busy with all the getting ready for October and such. Siobhan's sister is getting married next weekend so we will be in California soon. Here's something cool that I have been planning for this blog, but first of all, make sure that you read Pastor Steve's new blog every week! The new thing that I have been planning will happen hopefully on the week of the 15th. And I'm not going to tell you yet until next week - this way I keep you in suspense.

This past Sunday we did the songs The Glory of God, God is Great, Does Anybody Here, and Filled with Glory. I really like the song Filled with Glory. I know the guy who wrote it (not very well though) - Michael Gungor. He's a year younger than me, but I don't hold a candle up to the wisdom he has about true authentic worship. There's those people that you see on a big stage and doing great things and you think, "What did they do to get that gig, they're not that special." He is not one of those people. I don't have the album in front of me so I don't quite know if this particular song was co-written with anyone, but I wanted to draw attention to the writer of this song because I do think it's important to give honor to those who write the songs that we all have come to know and enter into God's presence with, and to recognize the artists who I believe actually do spend time to make sure that the songs we are singing in our church are not void of good, wholesome, biblical content. My prayer towards Washington Community Church is that we continue to grow in depth of faith, and still maintain a child-like faith so as to never get to the place where we are approaching our worship services with a "what can I get outta this" attitude, and in a way I honor artists like M. Gungor, P. Baloche, C. Tomlin for keeping it real and fresh. I encourage you to read this article by Chuck Colson and comment. I think it's rather funny. I think I might have featured this article on my blog a couple of months ago - I don't know.

Let's look at some of the lyrics to this song, "As we all bow - As we all come casting off our crowns - Would you hear our cry? - We want to see You glorified." Revelation 4:9-11 says, Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: Â“ You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.Â” We sing about this. We cast off our crowns, like the twenty-four elders, at the feet of Him who is worthy. When we sing this we need to put on that attitude that says, "God, everything that I have or ever will achieve in this lifetime, I lay it down at Your feet to let You know (and to let myself know) that You reign, You are in control, You are the true owner of this crown." We want to see Him glorified. What do we mean by that? Do we really comprehend, when we are singing these songs that we are audibly asking that God's word come true? I think it would be safe of me to say that we are not thinking about that all the time. Sure, we know we ought to, but more often we, including worship leaders, are thinking about what we are going to have for lunch that afternoon. Here's a challenge for us this week as we come to this place of worship. Let's all let ourselves be bathed, if you will, in the lyrics of the songs this next Sunday. Then, when we have allowed ourselves to be shed of all the stuff that is going through our minds that shouldn't be, close our eyes, sing along the best you can, and meditate on the glory of God that He speaks about in his word. And really say with your whole heart, "God, I desire to see You glorified." It takes having mindset towards heaven. Understanding that this is not our home, and the glory of God that is our future is eternity with Jesus. But, closer to home, the more we walk throughout our day with this mindset, and the more we come into church with this mindset - we will not be able to stop the inevitable glory of God from coming and residing in our home and our workplace and contagiouslyly reaching those around us everyday. Here is a passage that I encourage you to read and think on this weekend. It paints a picture of the glory of God being like light. I encourage you to make this your prayer this week. "God, I want to see You glorified in our community, in our city, in our nation like a bright shining light!"

Revelation 21:22-27

2006-09-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

I just picked up the most recent album from Hillsong. It's called "Mighty to Save". Very cool. I would encourage you to buy it. I think you can get it on itunes or (here's my plug for Bill and Julie) you can get it at your local Jesus Bookstore. That's where I got mine. You can check it out here and I think you can listen to audio samples here. If you like hillsongs and you like what we've been doing every Wednesday night, then you'll love this. If Terry MacAlmon is your thing (and there is nothing wrong with that) and only his kind of stuff then you probably will not like this album.

Also, if you haven't done it already, go to my musicians page on myspace.com/trentonwalker and listen to my new song in the making called "Overflow". Many of you have emailed me about it already, thanks for the comments. That's much of the reason why I didn't get to write last week, that and other meetings for the record that I am still working on.

So the songlist this past Sunday was: I Will Boast, Hosanna (the new song), Comes From Jesus, and Your Name. What did you think of the new song? Did anyone catch the theme? We all know that Pastor Steve is not much for themes throughout the service (except for when we did "40 days of purpose"). But occasionally I will do them to drive home a point. I'll give you a hint. It was a two-part theme. Like a well decorated room will have two complimenting colors, I wanted this list to be two things that would compliment each other.

Maybe I'll write in on this again this week. God bless.

2006-09-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

First of all this week I would like to say congratulations to my Sister and her family on the arrival of their newest baby girl, Gabbriella Faye Hall! And check out the newest guitar player on the worship team
Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Siobhan and I are just excited about life and enjoying this new autumn season! So, I have no idea what people thought about last week. My only hope is that you actually did read it and just failed to comment. Remember though this is for the people of Washington Community Church to learn more about God through worship. If you're not commenting, I might just have to get a little more controversial. I think the content has been wonderful. But, of course, that's because I've written it. I haven't heard any negative response, and any response at all would be appreciated. Now, I'm just rambling.

As far as the CD goes. Kathy Hewitt has kindly reminded me that I posted publicly that I would have the album done by the end of August. Thanks for the rebuke Kathy. Here's the deal. I am doing this whole project myself and for the very first time. I am waiting to meet with some people to finish some last minute stuff. My original plan was to have five songs on the album. However, I have seven now. So, that's cool, but at the same time, Kathy's right, if I want to do ten songs then we might never get this project done. I've made it available now to download "The Life That Never Ends" at My Space and you can also now listen to "My Help Comes From You."

Sorry, I don't have much to say about this past Sunday. I admit that I was a little out of it (not feeling very well). But, regardless of how I feel I hope that my desire to worship God through-it-all is contagious, rather than my feeling under the weather. That's a whole topic on it's own... maybe you could write me a testimony of an Acts 16 moment.

God bless

2006-09-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Rehearsal went well last night - I thought. Here's the deal. I desire excellence in the music ministry, as well as getting people involved. Getting people involved may mean sacrificing perfection, however, I will not work with even the most skilled, or perfect, musician if they have stopped growing or are unwilling to learn. Does that mean that I have something to teach them? Sure I do. Do they have something to teach me? Definitely! And if a musician or singer is not that good yet, but shows potential - meaning they have a desire and patience to get better - I'll find some way to get them involved. I desire to give God my best. We should desire to give God our best - a glorious praise. But, our best program that we can ever put together is still just a child's crayon drawing in comparison to a master artist such as our heavenly Father (Job 26:7-14). But He looks not on what we've put together, but our heart in the matter. We expect to never see a video glitch and poor audio problems on NBC, even when it's live. Yet somehow we make exceptions for church. As if it's ok to not give our best. Not only that, we kind of expect things to be almost not-as-perfect. Why? It's not like God cares about whether or not it's perfect. This is not an issue of perfection. This is actually an issue of idol worship. "What! Where did you just go with that one, Trent," you say. Here's my case. God looks at our heart in what we are bringing to him. Abel brought God the first and the best. Cain didn't (Genesis 4:3-7). When we praise the excellence of something above the excellence that we would bring before God himself it is considered idol worship. Which is better to say, "God, I worship You with my whole heart," or "God, I worship You, because you command me to." The first response would have been Abel's response and the second would have been Cain's response. I say we should not expect to hear anything less than the best from churches today. I say that we should no longer expect to do things half-hearted, but rather with our whole heart, not because He has commanded us to. It's as if we are "doing" unto the Lord of all creation, the One who has created a masterpiece that our best human efforts could not compare with, the One who has a status that is much higher than that of the President of the USA. Of course, everyone has to start somewhere and we should not expect to be like NBC at this point. Remember though, it's not perfection, but our heart in the matter. I would dare say that if we don't bring the same attitude towards excellence that all of those big-time production places bring, then - on an attitude/heart level - we are not bringing God our best. And in my opinion that must mean we are putting our best somewhere else.

Question: This is my opinion, remember. Do you think this opinion is Biblical? Why or why not?

2006-08-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

What is our excuse? Last week I talked about how, if we don't watch ourselves carefully, we can become conoissuer's of worship. I will go as far as saying that of church as a whole. If God really is doing a new thing, then how ready will we be for change? Could it be that the intimate time that we had in the presence of God five years ago, or even five weeks ago for that matter, will not ever happen again unless we change? Let's look at denominations, there was a time when every denomination had a revelation and an experience from God and they capitalized on that revelation and then stayed in it not realizing that what God wanted to do was capture their hearts and say, "Ok, now live your life for Me, move with Me, flow with Me... I may lead someone into My presence in a way that I did not lead you... can you handle that?" And now, what do we see. We see denominations on the rise again, because they are getting hold of this truth. The truth that we must move with God. You see, His desire is His people, all people really. His desire is that all men would come to know Him (2 Peter 3:9) and that means that our Father, who draws all men to Himself, will be doing new things. I'm talking about church culture here, but what I'd like to draw attention to is Praise and Worship Music and where I believe that we need to go as a church. Buckle your seat belts here, because what I'm about to tell you and show might shake the very foundations of what you hold so dear when it comes to praise and worship music. You know that stuff that we've been playing every so often on Wednesday nights now, with the electric guitars and loud drums and cool lighting... yup, that's what I'm talking about. I believe that it is time now for this church to do that type of worship on a regular basis. Listen to the words of Jesus in Luke 14:23 "Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full." I want everyone who is reading this to go to this link: Granger Community Church and click on the "Watch last week's service: Hitch - August 26-27" link at the bottom right of the page. If you don't have much time to watch it I want to encourage you to at least watch it until the end of the intro video to the message, give yourself about fifteen minutes. Then please, come back to this blog and post your comments on it.

Luke 14:16-24

Also, for those of you on the WCC Worship Team. Joe is currently working on a new website for the church and in the meantime he has made it available for us to grab charts, mp3's and scheduling. Go to en.washingtoncommunity.org and enjoy!

2006-08-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

I heard great things about yesterday at church. Siobhan and I were worshipping at Fairfax Community Church, and I left the leadership of the music up to Pastor James. This time he was a little more prepared than the other opportunities that I have given him in the past.
Let me talk a little bit about the song that James introduced to the family of Washington Community Church yesterday called "I Will Boast." It was not that long ago in our church where we had some people (very vocal people) who had linked arms with us to carry out the vision of the church and had the same heart and mind as Pastor Steve, but failed to see the true aspect of excellence in worship music. What I mean by that is; they thought that Pastor's heart was to be able to have an awesome music program that we could boast about to other people and other churches as a kind of "well look at what we've got" type of thing. Rather than his real heart for the worship music at the church which is and has always been his desire for people to engage themselves in and touch the heart of God regardless of what specific songs we play. And before you start trying to think of who I'm talking about, let me encourage you to stop. Because I believe that it's something we all need to evaluate in ourselves on how we approach this. Besides, you didn't come to this blog to read the latest church gossip. And since I said that, I would also like to say that I will try not to be so realistically hard as I was last week, because I also do not want this to be a Christian-people-beating blog either. I bring up these people and their approach or attitude towards praise and worship music, because I want to bring light to what that time really is and ought to be. It's a time to boast in the Lord, to boast in His greatness and His excellence... not ours. This is a practical look at how this song can operate in our lives. Knowing that we enter in to His presence with a thankful heart, and not a heart that is, like commenting on how a meal tastes, a connoisuer of worship.
Also, I've heard someone say once, "Why don't we do scripture songs?" Here is a great scripture song. And it doesn't get much better than that.

Jeremiah 9:24 This is what the Lord says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the Lord.

2006-08-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

And Elisha said to [Joash], “Take a bow and some arrows. ” So he took himself a bow and some arrows. 16 Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. 17 And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the LORD’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them.” 18 Then he said, “Take the arrows”; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground”; so he struck three times, and stopped. 19 And the man of God was angry with him, and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times.” - 2 Kings 13:15-19

In light of this passage and this past weekend, what are we to do with the word of God that has been spoken over us? In this passage we see that Elisha declared a word of prophecy over Joash, and Joash's response was insufficient. For those readers who are not a part of WCC, we had a prophet come to the church this past weekend. And for those of you who may be from a church that has taught you that true prophets have ceased, I'm sure that your pastors and leadership have explained very specifically why that is true. This is not an article to try to convince you otherwise. However, I will say that if you are of that mind-set, please do not be ignorant of the things of God which even the wisest scholars do not understand. And now that I've said that, I can get to the meat of this passage. What was it that made Joash respond in the way that he did? Have you ever noticed in a worship service that when the worship leader says, "Let's all stand," or "Lift up your hands" there's this little voice inside us that occasionally says, "No"? We will never admit it, but it is our own pride that says that. It's our own pride that says, "I'm not going to do that and look like a fool," or "I just don't feel like doing that, and I don't feel that I have to''. It's in this time that we are faced with the choice of whether or not to throw caution to the wind or get stuck in what some would call the paralysis of analysis. In a split second we begin to reason in our mind of all the logical excuses for not doing what God asks us to do, because after all, "It wasn't God that said it - it was just a man," we say to ourselves. The Bible speaks pretty vividly about what will happen if we choose to not do what He says. And let me also say that it just could possibly be that God would choose to reveal his promises to us through a person who would ask us to do the craziest things. I hate to say it, because it was a little uncomfortable (and those of you who were there this weekend will understand), but when Pastor Letchner told us to give God a shout of praise, and we found ourselves giving God a half-o-praise - it reminds me of this passage. It's like God is saying, "Here's the promises I'm giving you, now I want you to obey this silly man up there, and shout at the top of your lungs, because by this I will match your blessing." Ouch! I know myself, and I'm often thinking, "I've got to not shout so that I can save my voice for leading worship." There, I'm honest, that's my cop-out. But, I'm no exception. I need to obey as well. Now, I encourage you to post your comments on this, because it's such a touchy subject. Maybe we can get some of your much needed input into this.

Let me leave you with one verse. It's Revelation 3:14-16 & 22 and it says this: "To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this: 15 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. 16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
I bring up this verse not to pound into us what we aren't doing and to make us feel guilty - but if God says this, I want to be the one to listen and hear what He is saying. This means as much to me as it does to every reader, so I am by no means condemning anyone. This should challenge us to take a good hard look at how we are to treat the promises that God has given us, because obviously it takes some action on our part to actually see these promises happen.

2 Kings 13
Revelation 3

2006-08-02T07:57:00.001-07:00

Siobhan and I are in Michigan this week and had the wonderful opportunity to talk to some other pastors in the Resurrection Life Churches International affiliates. I don't have much time to write this week so I'll keep this brief. I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning on Monday night talking with two other worship pastors in the association. That was cool! I will hopefully be able to write in more detail about the things we worship leaders were talking about (ie. church culture changes and stuff). The rest of this week we will be spending with our family. My parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary and it's my mother's birthday too.

Make sure that you check us out tonight, live, at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, MI. You can watch it via streaming video. Check out last weeks post for the link.

2006-07-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

Join Siobhan and I for a time of Worship and Praise next week Wednesday night, August 2, at 7:00 PM. We will be leading at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, MI and you can watch via live streaming video. Just go to www.reslife.org and click on "Watch Services Live!"

2006-07-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

I've had the passage of Isaiah 6 in my head lately. I'm not in that section of the Bible in my current devotions; it just keeps coming into my head. I shared the portion of this passage that has been going through my head yesterday during the services and I feel a need to explore it a bit more.
Click here
Specifically verse 1 where Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple" For starters, I can't really find any specific theological or symbolic depth that I would have need to clarify on this verse. It just keeps recurring in my head.

Maybe I should open up the comments here to allow for those of you could share on how a specific verse has ran through your head all day and what you have learned from it. I would love to hear from some of the readers on this.

As I study this verse a little more, I find a lot of people relating it to God's greatness. I felt that the song "Holy is the Lord" would be a good fit for this, but let's go beyond how I think the lyrics of the song enhance our experience at church. Isaiah starts by naming the time at which this vision happened. It was in the same year that King Uzziah died. Most bibles call this chapter "Isaiah's Commission (Call)", and I have heard a great deal of Pastor's use this passage in conjecture with teachings on responding to God's calling in our own lives. If you read on in the chapter you will find that this is a great model for that, but I will try to stay away from that particular focus. Let's talk about the circumstances surrounding this call. King Uzziah is described as being a good King, and for a long time too. When he died, I'm sure the nation took the same as when JFK died (but I was not alive then, so I don't really know) or when 911 hit. Isaiah now receives his calling, and in his time the throne of Uzziah was the most exalted position one could be in and, more than likely, a hard act to follow. But in the vision he sees not a King, but the Lord God Almighty, seated on a throne. Higher than all else that earthly words could describe. Because of the nature of visions in the Bible, I would probably not be far off if I said that Isaiah used "throne" - the only word he could think of to describe the lofty position of authority that God operated in. It was like God was saying to him, "You are not being called be mere men who sit on thrones made of wood and gold, but you are being called by the one who rules them all." I like to pictures like that into my head as I come to church on Sunday to worship and give praise to my King. There was an old song that churches used to sing (well it was old to me) in the 80's. It went something like this, "We place You in the highest place... We place you high above all else" Which brings me to my point in this weeks blog. I find that in order to engage myself in worship, I need to take the scripture that I have been reading and discover ways that I can apply it in my life. Like, "Maybe God is trying to show me more of his greatness and power", "Maybe the way I approach church and God needs to be reevaluated in a very reverent way", "What does it mean to praise God whose grandeur and power fills the whole earth, like the train of His robe that fills the whole temple?" Before I find myself becoming to familiar in the presence of God, I need stop and realize that God is great, and what an understatement.

2006-07-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

Let me begin first by saying that if you haven't been to church on Wednesday night lately - you are missing out. The worship team has been featuring all Hillsong United songs, and it's been a blast to take part in. So there's my plug for that. I hope that more of you come on Wednesday night at 7:30pm.

Pastor Steve spoke this morning, at our weekly staff meeting, about "The crucible". A crucible is a pot used for melting metal. He used it as an illustration of leadership. Basically, as leaders (and as Christians for that matter) we all go through a "crucible" of sorts that God allows so that he can test our character. Yesterday he spoke about General Rabshakeh (Isaiah 36:10). I'm tying this together so pay attention. This general laid siege to the city of Jerusalem while Hezekiah was king, and spoke to the people to incite fear and distrust towards their king. He said that God himself sent him to destroy the city and what's interesting to note is the fact that he said it in Hebrew. Hebrew was the language of the common person in Judah during that day. Aramaic was the language that many of the nations surrounding spoke and people in authority used to communicate to each other. However, this general spoke in the language not of authority to send a message to the king, but he sent a message to the king of Israel in a language that all the people would understand. Are you still with me? King Hezekiah told the people 'whatever you do don't listen to this man, God is for us not against us.' G. Rabshakeh said, 'God - your God - told me to destroy you, so we can do this the easy way: you give up, or the hard way: I kill you.'

I bring this up because I notice that we often are faced with times of trials or testing that we feel we were not prepared for. Like God is putting in a crucible and burning out the stuff in us that is not supposed to be there and revealing the stuff that we are really made of. I believe that Hezekiah was in one of those times. The situation is similar to what we would be faced with if for instance someone said, and had forensic proof for, finding the body of Jesus or something silly like that. Where would you stand, if someone or something was challenging your very foundation of life.

Listen to what Hezekiah says to the Lord at this very climactic time in his life. Isaiah 37:16-17a, 20 "O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17a Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; 20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD, You alone.Â

Wow, what a display of the true character of a man! My question to us all is where do we turn in these times? What is going to come out of us when we praise God in song and the words of our mouth, sung out of a true heart of love for Him, are taken seriously by God, and he tests us? Will we continue to praise Him, or do we run in circles of tossing in the towel only to find ourselves back praising Him six months or so later after we've failed our trial?

Let's take a look into our life, and see whether what comes against us moves us towards faith in God, like Hezekiah, or away from God. True worship is adoration to God regardless of what we are going through.

For further study on this, I encourage you to read Acts 16:16-49.

2006-07-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God" - Psalm 42:1. We sang the song "As the Deer" yesterday at church. For those of you who are just now joining in and are wondering about the culture of WCC, please understand that we don't normally dig back twenty or so years in our worship music files to get songs for Sunday. But this song is definitely a timeless song that Christians have been singing all across the world now for the last couple of decades. In fact, Siobhan and I had the privilege to attend the school at which this song was written. It was written by Marty Nystrom. For more information on the story behind this song, check out this link:

www.jjonline.com/communicator/200303/stories.php

Because of the feature on the Haiti missions team, the worship time was cut a little short - but was an awesome time is was. I by no means am cutting at the missions team. So please, don't think that. I think that there are many times that we need to allow a little less singing and more testimony. But that is an article for another time.

In about a month I will be releasing my new CD. I've already mentioned it in a previous post. But you can now check out the first single by hitting this link:

www.myspace.com/trentonwalker

I do not really condone this website, however, it is a free resource for me, so please forgive me on that.

Please, post any comments you have on the song on this site.

2006-06-26T10:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a wonderful time in the presence of God! I had the opportunity to play drums for most of the service, and James led the first three songs. I thought that I might have to hop on the drums, because I didn't have a drummer scheduled for the service, but I was waiting on God to do something different. I felt a little different - I wanted Dallas on piano and not drums (usually I will ask him to play drums in that instance). So I waited and didn't even talk to James until Sunday morning. I don't typically do that because I think that people ought to have time to prepare. I was hoping James would be able to step up to the plate, and he did. I believe that it takes something special to lead worship. Anyone can just lead a song, but not everyone has what it takes to get up every Sunday morning and inspire a people to worship God in song. I believe James has that gifting. Unfortunately, most people who have that gifting at least have the time to prepare. I didn't give James that chance. Sure, I could have led just fine, but I felt God was telling me to hand that service over. I don't mind one bit playing the drums or whatever instrument for the sake of what the Holy Spirit desires to do. I think James did a phenomenal job on the songs that I asked him to do. And I'm not really looking for how well someone does on the songs particularly as I am looking for how they interact with the congregation.

I did take the opportunity to lead "More Love, More Power" and "My Help Comes From You" towards the end of the services. And that also was a Holy Spirit move. I had originally planned on doing the song "The Beauty of the Lord", and as we were getting our sound check, I just felt impressed to do "My Help...". As I was playing that - the song "More Love..." just came to me and this all happened like five minutes before the first service started!

Going back to the first part though. I believe that everyone should be used in their own particular giftings and when they are asked to do something that isn't quite their gifting, or when they are used in their gifting but not given the tools to do job right, they feel used rather than empowered. Let's have some people write in their comments on this statement. And James, you too, man. I would love to hear what you have to say. What are you're thoughts on how yesterday went? And anyone else for that matter. Please, post your comments. If you don't want to set up a blogger account, you can post using the anonymous posting. Just select the "comments" link at the bottom right of this post.

2006-06-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, this is my first blog experience - with the exception of the church website which never gets updated. I would like to, first of all, begin by explaining my vision for this blog. I will try my best to keep this dedicated entirely to Praise and Worship music or the arts and anything within that focus. I say this, because I am often doing more than that at Washington Community Church. So, having said that, I want to let everyone know that I will be releasing my short album at the end of this summer. It's looking like August. It will have songs like "The Life That Never Ends", "My Help Comes From You" and "Jesus is Alive". I'm thinking of putting others on there like "You Knew My Name", "The Glory of God" and a song by Paul Baloche called "Offering". We did his song yesterday at church.

Which brings me to a conversation piece. Yesterday I spoke a little on the thankfulness we need to have as we come into the presence of God to worship Him in song. I felt that I didn't get the opportunity to explain that fully. Of course, being a worship leader, I'm not really there to speak as much as there to help the congregation worship. Of course, that last sentence has a whole lot of content that I am still learning the meaning of as a worship leader. But moving on. This exhortation that I gave was inspired by this song "Offering". In the Old Testament times, one was required to bring an animal sacrifice in order to have their sins atoned for (or covered). But, since Jesus died on the cross for our sins, being the perfect sacrifice, he washed our sins away and therefore the Bible says that we can come boldly before His throne. Hebrews 4:16 - "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." In Old Testament times a person had to then go through a priest to worship God. But now, because of the blood of Jesus, we can worship Him and come before Him without going to a priest, or bringing a burnt offering of an animal sacrifice.

Occasionally, I see people being so flippant in their approach to God. I'll be the first to tell you that I am as down-to-earth as one can be when I'm in church. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the idea that we should bring ourselves into church wholeheartedly engaged into what's going on. Like an offering. Sure we don't bring a dead animal, but we should bring ourselves. God wants a living sacrifice - us. I want to encourage us to take on the attitude of reverence to God in worship. He is worthy of much more than we can possibly give, but let us, for our sake, give Him our best anyways. As an offering of worship to Him.

I think you can comment on this article if you would like to ask questions or comment further.

God bless.