Ridgecrest Music Week 2014 Day Four

I began the day with another class from David Manner on "Guardrails for Long-Tenured Worship Ministry".  What a great class! The advice given was so practical, I really think it can apply to anyone in ministry positions in general.  So, I thought I would paraphrase his points below here:

1. Place more focus on the person than on the project 

2. Look out for number 2. (place others first)

3. Don't compare your place of ministry.  Take what you have and make something wonderful.

4. Be a lifelong learner

5. Realize failure is an option, occasionally. Take risks.  Own up to your failure.

6. Remember you are not on your own.  Surround yourself with a great cloud of witnesses. Get a team.  

7.  Love much. Don't put church before family, but don't use family as an excuse to shirk responsibility

8. Make the mortgage payment before you remodel the kitchen. (Worst first).  Work hard.

9.  Move tables. Don't disappear when the hard, dirty, and unflattering jobs need to be done.

10. Lighten up.  Give yourself a break every now and then. 

Good stuff, right?  I though so.  I think I'm doing pretty well on this checklist, but there are a couple that I struggle with a bit.  

My next class was on Video Basics from Zach Cochran of innovative Media and dealt with understanding the vocabulary of video language - VGA, XVGA, 4K, etc...  It was a refresher for the most part, but I was able to ask some questions about some situations with our current TV ministry issues that could possible steer us in a new direction there as far as equipment.  

Worship today with Michael Catt was great again.  I have to confess that I had reached my point of exhaustion in the week by this time today and was getting quite sleepy.  I feared I wouldn't make it, but once again, the content was quite engaging and ended with a very nice time of prayer.  The emphasis was on the power of a praying church.  We explored the meaning of the word "fervent," which means fully stretched (as in a muscle), in the context of prayer.

After lunch, I had a couple of class blocks where I had no class options I was interested in.  Therefore, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Prayer Garden.  I spent a good amount of time there in Hosea 4, where God outlines His anger against the people of Israel because of their sin.  But he doesn't stop there, as he also makes it clear that his anger burns towards the prophets and priests as well.  We can gather from this a reminder that our positions as ministers are also held accountable for their actions or inactions in the decline of spirituality in a culture.  Convicting stuff.  Verse 13 also says: "They sacrifice on the mountaintops, and they burn offerings on the hills, and under oaks, poplars, and terebinths, because their shade is pleasant. And so your daughters act promiscuously and your daughters-in-law commit adultery. (Hosea 4:13 HCSB)". I interpret this as how "comfortable" the people have become in worshipping in the shade, so to speak, but then leaving and returning to their lives of sin right after.  Boy, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

This afternoon's LifeWay reading session was pretty good.  The new Dennis Allen "Let's Sing" Christmas Cantata called "He is Here" was once again a winner, and will be a frontrunner choice for my Christmas Cantata this year.   There was also a Thanksgiving mini-musical called "We Give Thanks" that was also quite good.  A Christmas standalone anthem that I liked was "The Birthday of The King" arranged by Mauldin, which was quite nice.  

The feature concert tonight began with a performance by the conference youth and children's choir.  The youth performance was plagued by sound problems early, but they finished strong.  The children (wiith my Nathan being among them) performed selections from the new CWS series of curriculum.  It was a very upbeat and lively set of songs, almost dance club-like at parts.  High energy!  I'm still not sure I'm 100% on board with the new bent.  I did enjoy the music and could see my kids choir doing it, though.  Before the last half of the program with Shelley Johnson, we hear a surprise solo performance by one of the former members of the Imperials, and it was fantastic.  Shelly's performance was quite good, but sometimes the track sort of overwhelmed her.  The songs were really nice, though, especially her new spin on the classic hymn "The Love of God." It surprised me they had her back so soon after just having her a few years ago, but I was still blessed.  

The evening concluded with ice cream at the Nibble Nook. :) 🍦

Ridgecrest Music Week 2014 Day Three

This was a very good day.  My only regret is I would have loved to have had about two more hours in it.   

I started off the morning with a class with an intriguing title "Is the Lords Supper a Waste of Service time?" with David Manner (not to be confused with David Banner - you wouldn't like him when he's angry.). It dealt with how The Lord Supper has become ritual for many churches and has lost its meaning.  I was really hoping to gain some practical ideas about how to help folks to truly see the significance of what this ordinance represents, and I did gain a few insights, but all-in-all this class dealt with more general and philosophical ideas about the Lords Supper.  Good reminders and some food for thought, though.

Worship this morning continued the hard-hitting between the eyes preaching from Michael Catt. Today's message dealt with how to abide in God, and what that truly means.  It also dealt with the work of the Holy Spirit on the church today, and how we try to "do church" without Him.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from the message today (paraphrased):

"The Holy Spirit could lead the SBC for ten years, and we wouldn't know it because were so programmed up."

"The last time God put together a committee, it was to discover if the Israelites should go into the promised land.  The result was that they wondered In the wilderness for forty years and did funerals"

"Churches spend too much money on things that just entertain their Christian friends"  (Referring to concerts and pageants - ouch)

"A lost person can easily detect when you are just doing religion and if the Spirit is not present"

"A church never rises above the level of her leadership. Individuals may rise above it, but the church as a whole won't."

My next class was led by Mark Willard, who is Michael Catt's worship leader at Sherwood.  It dealt with what happens when the Holy Spirit changes direction mid-service and you need to deviate from "the plan."  He talked about the importance for good communication between Pastor, Worship Pastor, and musicians ahead of time to be prepared to transition easier.  

My last class of the day was with Kenny Lamm again, and dealt with one of my favorite areas of interest - Social Media.  Loved this class. Learned a few tips I had not though about and was reminded about a few tools that I haven't explored in a while.  I liked especially how he reiterated about how important a tool Facebook really is in promoting your church and building relationships with people, something I've been preaching at folks for a while now.  

As has become the norm the last few years, LifeWay did not have a major structured schedule for Wednesday evening, except for an optional look at a new Christian movie that was coming out soon.  We decided to head towards Asheville and met up with a dear college friend of mine, Julianne Kuykendall, and had a good time hanging out, looking at pictures, and reminiscing. It was super fun.

 

Last full day tomorrow!  

Ridgecrest Music Week 2014 Day Two

Wow, what an exhausting day!

I have been impressed with the class selections this year, there have been numerous times already that I've seen I'm going to have several hard choices as to which classes to choose, as there are very few repeated classes.  

My first class of the morning was a class on youth choirs and working with students.  It explored the whys of having a youth choir and reminded us of a lot of the things to look out for when starting working with student choirs.  

Secondly, I attended a very good reading session from Praise Gathering this morning.  Like with Mike speck last night, I was pleasantly surprised at the offerings from there, as I normally don't have much I can take from them.  Their arrangements tend to be too big and grandiose for the small and medium choirs I've been a part of leading.  I found a very good arrangement by Rouse of "He Will Carry You," A brand new Gaither piece called "In Good Hands," and a nice original Rouse piece called "Hope Remains."  There were two or three other keepers as well.  

After this, I had a class with Amanda Singer, one of the architects behind the reboot of the "Children's Worship Series", formerly the Children's Music Series.  

Sidebar time:  One of the things that was really overemphasized in this session was how the new series really focused on worship and equipping children to be active participants in worship.  I'm all for that.  There was almost an unspoken slam of the old curriculum, though, implying it wasn't "worship" focused.  If I was one of the writers of the old stuff, man, that would really insult me.  In the end, I think any of the past CMS curriculum is what the teachers make out of it.  I can't see how musicals and the older "performance based curriculum" as it was referred to is any less "worshipful" that another song for our kids.  Maybe I'll understand a little better if I swim in the new curriculum a bit in the days ahead and I'll be more sympathetic.  I'm team LifeWay all the way, but I have a small concern that there is a bit of worshipping "worship" and not worshipping God, and teaching kids how to do the same.  Does that make sense?  I still love you LifeWay Music, uh I mean Worship Week.  ;).  Sidebar over.

Back to Amanda Singer's class.  She was one smart cookie, and really had a great philosophy on children's ministry.  She was a great speaker and Sharon and I both enjoyed this class.  Amanda is also serving as the children's choir camp director for the week, so Nathan is experiencing her too.  

Next up was Kenny Lamm's class on Worship Tools for churches with limited resources.  Being somewhat in that category, I thought it was a class I shouldn't miss.  Now since Kenny is a friend, I'm a bit partial, but I can say the class was very helpful.  In addition to hearing about familiar tools such as LifeWay Worship and Band in a Box, I was introduced to some even better featured apps and software I had never heard of, such as ISingWorship, an app that has some amazing tools for virtual band, such as on the fly changes to the ordering of verses and choruses, etc.  Frankly that blew my mind.  

Worship today was a great experience.  Michael Catt, the conference pastor and Pastor for Sherwood Church, the church that brought us the movies Fireproof, Flywheel, Facing the Giants, et.al.  brought a great message on how churches today are grieving the Holy Spirit by specific actions.  His first point was that churches grieve the Holy Spirit by running itself like a business.  That hit home a bit.  Some other sound bytes (paraphrased) are that we "treat God's Word like junk mail," and condemned legalists by saying they often "sleep with The Constitution and Bylaws under their pillow."  He pulled no punches, like when referring to the difficult people who constantly put tradition and ritual ahead of God's Word even when scripture clearly countered their argument by saying that we shouldn't "waste time arguing with idiots, just politely thank them and ignore them."  A bit harsh, but he's got a point.  He also hit home when he said prayer should not be a transition point for flow, but always should be treated as an intimate encounter with God.  Good stuff.  

Shannon Wexelberg was the guest artist this evening.  She is a super talented song writer, vocalist, and pianist.  I've been connected with her for years through a song she wrote for the musical "A Christmas Prayer,, but it was nice to finally hear her in person.  Very touching and intimate time of music making.  

On a personal note, we have had some disappointments with the child care and day camp programs this year.  Once today we were told to hike to the top of the hill to pick up Nathan only to find he was not there but at another location.  Sharon went to drop off Ginny this morning and the teachers said they couldn't receive kids until 15 minutes after Sharon's class started, which was not what the program had said, plus their supervisor was nowhere to be found.  Nathan also had a bad experience this evening with his teachers this evening too.  Having kids at two different pickup locations at opposite ends of the highest part of the campus has been a cruel physical punishment for parents. We've thought about just taking Nathan with us to the adult classes at some point to save some of that walking.  This was Nathan tonight at the concert as proof:

Ridgecrest Music Week 2014 Day One

It's amazing to have seen the Ridgecrest campus change so much over the past ten years.  The lobby where I am sitting here typing this just a few years ago wasn't even here, but was a classroom off of the cafeteria. The preschool building this year is undergoing a major renovation, and Ginny's classes are at the distant Royal Gorge.  We are staying in Rhododendron this year, a first for our family.  Our room is very strange.  We have one tiny two foot window at ceiling level with the AC unit right under it.  The bathroom is fantastically remodeled, though. Very nice. 

It's great to see my kids go into automatic mode when coming here now.  Even Ginny sort of knows the routine of what this place is and I think both kids are starting to sense the true spirit of what this place represents for me.  Nathan was even really engaged with the worship music tonight in the opening concert.  

Today there was really just two main events, the Lillenas Reading session, and the evening feature with Mike Speck.  The Lillenas session had one really good anthem "I Need No Other Argument," a Cliff Duren arrangement that was my favorite.  There was a pretty decent Christmas book "Sing the Glory" from Marty Hamby that showed some potential. 

Now, I have to admit, I have never been a Mike Speck fan.  Mind you, I've always respected his work, but it just didn't trip my trigger in the past, so to speak.  Well, tonight he lead in a concert of worship that was fantastic.  It was so perfectly balanced and blended with old and new songs than spanned multiple, and I mean multiple, generations.  We had everything from the old hymn "Haven of Rest" to today's "Ten Thousand Reasons".  We had Michael W. Smith, we had Rich Mullins, we had 90s charismatic renewal music, Brooklyn Tab-esque things, Southern gospel.  And they all worked together and everyone left encouraged.  I should mention most of the things from his concert were from his new choral collection Everlasting Praise 4, which I may have to look at again later.  Specks stuff tends to be a bit tough for the smaller choir though.  

Tuesday and Wednesday look like two full days, so it's off to bed for now.