what a weekend!

Easter and Good Friday planning, a Worship and Arts Vision time and a last minute fill in leading worship at Clovis Hills Saturday night had me worn out and seemingly frustrated by every little thing.  We were asked to lead worship at another church on Sunday morning and it turns out that was exactly what I needed. 

The group that I was playing with was awesome, everyone was in great spirits and just fun to be around, and I’ve got to tell you, this was one of the greatest worship experiences of my life. 

The church is small by our standards, only about 40 in the first service and 150 or so in the second, but man did they love to worship.  The church we were at has been through a lot in the last several months; they are transitioning and trying to find a new Pastor and after 50 years in existence are trying to stay relevant and impact the community.  It felt like they enjoyed our time together as much as we did.  They were singing, raising their hands and because of their energy and the size of the building I had a lot of freedom to step away from the microphone and let them go for it.  It was awesome! 

What is always especially great for me is to get to experience it with some really great friends that I’ve made here.  I realized how fun it is to play with the musicians and singers that we have here at Clovis Hills and how surprised I am that they have become such a big part of my life in a relatively short time.  I could share more about what happened at Sierra Heights, but I’ll let Dana tell you the story. 

 “Today I got up early and headed to Sierra Heights Baptist church to jam for the folks there. I have to say it was an incredibly moving experience for me. I have the awesome blessing of playing with some of the best musicians I’ve ever jammed with and today we played two services; one contemporary, and one a little laid back. Sierra is an older church. It’s been here for years and years and so the congregation is mostly older folks. But they seem to be trying to reach out to a younger generation and so they have one service that’s more rocking, and another that more traditional.

Now I am a rocker through and through. I’m listening to Metallica as I write this post. But honestly, today as I played the “traditional” service, I was blown away. We were playing at a lower volume and I was really holding back on the drums, but as we were playing, I could hear all these voices rising up, singing along with us… and there’s something about seeing folks in their 60’s & 70’s in thier sunday best singing out to God completely unhibited.

You know, we’re so uptight about how we look to other people and we’re so concerned with how our voices sound and so we hold back…. but here’s these older folks who could give a rat’s behind, just belting out songs in praise of our Lord. And I was just really moved by the beauty of thier voices and thier unabashed singing. Honestly It was all I could do to keep from crying like a baby behind the drum kit.

Later as I was reflecting on the day, it reminded me of church as a kid. I remember going to church and sitting there with all these really old people dressed in suits and dresses and just not understanding it at all. But I still remember my mom singing the hymns and how beautiful her voice sounded to me. I have no idea what that all means just yet, but it was just a great day of worship.”