This Year

2006- Was the year I was State Thespian President

2007- was the year I graduated and also the year I started to run from God, I also started attending a Christian College.

2008- was the year I failed out of college, came home and was unemployed for five months and I hit rock bottom. I was at the end of my rope, I had completely fallen away from God and my life was nothing.

2009- I started working at the best job I’ve ever had, I started playing in a praise band, I started pursuing God with all my heart, I became a worship leader at two churched. That year I started dating the girl I will most likely marry and I started school and dropped school and started school again. 2009 was the year I made some of my best friends, and had some of the best times of my life. 2009 also brought heartache, pain, and suffering. 2009 was an amazing year full of everything I could want, but…

2010- I believe will be my best year ever.

Blogzilla

I don’t know if you know this but I’m not a very good blogger, I’m actually pretty mediocre. That’s no shame of mine. I’m aware I have the ability to write well (ask my old AP English tests) but I’ve been struggling with putting my thoughts into a blog, it usually comes our as a random jumbled ramble that probably doesn’t make sense to anyone (including myself)

Thus comes Blogzilla.

The evil monster of blog doubt that creeps into your mind ever so slightly day after day.
“You’re blog isn’t readable”
“No one even cares about this stuff”
“who cares what YOU have to say?”
“Why even blog? You’re just gonna get made fun of.”
“If your blog isn’t any good the blog ninjas will come and assassinate you and your loved ones”
Ok so maybe not that last one, but have you ever doubted things you’ve done? Things you are currently doing?

This is a christian blog, that is no secret. My goal is to simply give the glory to God. That’s all. In everything I do, blogging, worship leading, selling shoes, or whatever, everything I do I need to give the Glory and Honor to God! Satan tries so hard to turn our eyes away from him, but we have to stop him from planting a seed of doubt in our minds.

Doubt has no place where faith is abundant.

Where do you need to put down your doubt?

Where do you need to trust God more?

Setlist Nov. 11

Worship: Breaking Free

To Worship God is to give our lives up to praising his name with absolutely no abandon.

Think about the last service you went to and the worship that took place in between those four walls.

Think about how you reacted, how the church reacted, how your leader reacted.

If it looked something like this, maybe things need to change:

The music starts up, everybody stands up and starts to sing like zombies, standing there talking and texting and not engaged in the worship that is taking place. No one is moved, no one is moving, no one is really giving their hearts over to God.

I’ve been there. I have seen it happen, and yes I have even been guilty of it before.

It seems that us as a church has a hard time actually letting ourselves worship God… For fear of What?

-Other People seeing us

-Other People Judging us

-Other People calling us names

-Other People. Period.

We are so afraid of our images and how other people perceive us that we forget about the opinion that really matters, and that is the opinion of Jesus Christ who died and suffered on a cross for our sins, and yet we think that the other people in this world are MORE IMPORTANT than glorifying him

Re-read that last sentence

Now think about how we often put things, everything above God. Other people, our blogs, our twitters, our jobs, our bf/gf, and countless other things

The First Commandment is this “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me”

You think to yourself “I am not worshiping Baal, I have not crafted idols and bowed down to them”

But the fact is you have

You LUKE WARM Christians stop bowing down to the idols of this world and start giving your lives over to Christ so that we may worship HIM with everything that we have!

What greater Joy is there, but the joy that comes from being in complete fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ? There is no greater joy in the entire world! You can search all you want to, but trust me, you will never ever find true happiness in this World, That can only come through Christ Jesus

I am in no way perfect in this area, I struggle everyday with this. I want to put myself, or my music, or my friends, or the internet above Christ.

“I don’t have time in the day to spend time with the God who both created and saved me”

“I can’t give God 5 Minutes of my weekday bc I am too busy, he has sunday’s”

STOP MAKING EXCUSES.

Start worshiping God.

This is a big passion of mine, I love to worship God and I strive every single day to take up my cross and follow hard after him, and even though I fail, he picks me up, places me in his lap and holds me while I cry.

He is everything.

He is love.

Let us together make a pact to give him the GLORY in everything we do.

“No weeping, No hurt or pain, no suffering-You hold me now

No Darkness, No sick or lame, no hiding-You Hold me now”

What can we do to stop worshiping “other gods”?

How can we give God all the Glory?

Does your church lay it all down during worship?

Do you?

-Siege

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Worship: Christian Hedonism

Hedonism is the principle that life should be devoted to gaining maximum pleasure or happiness. A hedonist is one who lives a life devoted to finding and experiencing maximum pleasure or happiness.

Christian Hedonism is devoting ones life to finding that true happiness through Jesus Christ and seeking the greatest happiness through worshiping him.

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” – C.S. Lewis

“In God’s presence is fullness (ultimate quality) of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forever (ultimate quantity).” Psalm 16:11

So as worship leaders and pastors our job is to bring people to the feet of God to worship Him, ultimately giving them the most pleasurable experience of their entire life.
John 10:10 says that Jesus came to give life and give it to the FULLEST!
Wow that sounds pretty awesome! But wait listen to what the scripture says, only through Jesus Christ can we experience full life or true happiness.

To worship God with everything we have, every day of the week, every moment of the day would bring us more Joy and Happiness than anything else this world can offer.
Nothing this world can offer can bring us true happiness.
Not Your Job
Not money
Not sex
Not your family
Not religion
Not Tv
Not Music
Not Alchohol
Nothing.

So are we leading our lives like Jesus is the one who brings true Joy into our lives? Or are we living like Jesus is just something among many?

We worship what we love, and trust me it shows. Whatever you are seeking to make you happy, stop putting it above God because only through Jesus we can obtain true joy.

The next time you worship, in whatever form that is, do it believing that it will be the most pleasurable experince of your life, and then you will see God move!

We all have a desire to be happy, and seeking God’s face is just one form of that, so I guess we all have a little Christian hedonism in us.

How are you worshiping?

Are you a Christian hedonist?

What do you pursue for happiness?

What do you need to stop pursuing?

What do you need to start doing to experince true happiness?

-Siege

Worship Part 2: The New Levites

42 “For generations to come this will be the daily burnt offering made in the Lord’s presence at the entrance to the tent of meeting. There I will meet with you to speak to you. 43 I will also meet with the Israelites there, and my glory will make this place holy. 44 I will dedicate the tent of meeting and the altar for their holy purposes. I will set Aaron and his sons apart for their holy duties of serving me as priests.

45 “Then I will live among the Israelites and be their God. 46 They will know that I am the Lord their God. I brought them out of Egypt so that I might live among them. I am the Lord their God.” Exodus 29:42-46

As you may know, when God brought the people out of Egypt in the Exodus, he began guiding the people into living in complete fellowship with Him. One of the most important aspects to Him was worship. Starting in Exodus 28 and outlined in grueling detail through the rest of the Torah, God outlines how the people will worship and talk to God through the Levites, or the priests if you will. Through the making of sacrifices the people worship God, but they make the sacrifices THROUGH the Levites. God will come and live among the people and be their God because of the worship taking place through the Levites.
Therefore, God uses the Levites as tools for his worship, so that his name may be glorified.

Levites beckon people to worship

Levites LEADS people in worship

Sound familiar?

Pastors have become the new Levites.

We have become the connection between God and his people.
Through us God is glorified and he will
Come live among his people, and we will know that he is God.
Pastors have become the new priests, the new medium for God to pour his body and blood out to his people so that all nations may know that he is God.
God’s standards for the Levites was insane, so shouldn’t we, as the new Levites take up standards just as strict?
They had to be clean and pure because they would meet with God, but don’t we meet with God every single day? Don’t we call on his name and meet with him every week?

Pastors are the new Levites.

We are God’s priests.

So let’s open our hearts to Gods will and let us be his instruments of worship for him.
Let us be so in tune with God, that everything we do glorifies his name.
We bring people to the feet of God, so let us take up our priesthood and lead in a way that we haven’t before.
Let’s sprint towards the king with our hearts open and our bodies pure.

He will live among his people and be their God.

How are you handling your priesthood?

-Siege

Worship Series Part 1: The first

We shall start our worship blog series with the first musicians

“and his brother’s name was Jubal, he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain; he was the forger of all instruments of Bronze and iron”
Genisis 4:21-22

These two guys were the first, no one ever told them what music was or what kind of instruments there were, they crafted the first instruments and played them. There was such a strong desire, such a strong pull, such a strong pull on their hearts, that they had no choice but to make music. Imagine this conversation.

Jubal- “Hey man, check out this sweet lyre I just made!”
Friend- “Oh… Ya that’s cool… Can I hunt with it?”
Jubal-”No no, you blow in it to make sounds”
Friend- “Why?”
Jubal- “Because it sounds pretty and it’s really cool”
Friend- “Sounds kind of gay to me”
Jubal-”Well YOU Sound pretty gay to me”

Ok so maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that, but you get the picture.
How do you think they worshiped? Do you think these guys were so in awe of God’s presence that they had no other choice but to make music to him? How did it feel the first time they played their instruments to God? Was it such an amazing experience that words couldn’t describe it?

It’s hard to determine what actually went down, but Jubal was definately the first worship leader the Bible speaks of, and Tubal-Cain was his first back up musician probably. I wonder if Tubal-Cain Continually pounded or blew on his instruments whils Jubal was trying to lead practice? He probably did.
The point of all of this is to say this, here are two guys who had never heard music, who had never heard of instruments, yet the calling on their life to honor God through music was so strong that they had to forge instruments to glorify God.
This is the way it should be with worship leaders! The tug on our heart to write, sing, and play music for the glory of God’s name should be so prevelant in our lives that nothing else really seems to compare! It’s what we are called to do, it’s what God has blessed us with, and we have no excuse to glorify ourselves through the process! GOD SHOULD GET ALL THE GLORY AND PRAISE THROUGH WHAT WE DO ON STAGE! PERIOD!
God gave us these talents, these instruments, these voices to glorify him, and to use those moments in time to glorify yourself is just like SPITTING IN THE FACE OF GOD!
Jubal understood that God gave him his instruments to glorify his name! How have we fallen so far as humans to twist the beautiful and simple form of worship to something that is no longer about God but how well you can solo on your guitar!
It is shameful in every way!

I’m not saying every worship leader is like this, it’s quite the opposite, but the times that I see that person I’m talking about, it makes me sick to my stomach!

So we should try to be like Jubal in all of our worship. We should give the glory to God forever, because in our hearts he burned a passionate desire to glorify him through music.

Have you ever seen a fake worship leader?
How did it make you feel?

How do you worship?

Worship Leaders? (the Debate)

The other day @loswhit (follow him on Twitter here) blogged about the term worship leader. (Worship Leader or Sunday Singer?) and what it meant. Read the post (linked above) for the whole scoop, but the premise of the post was about the term worship leader and if we should use it or not. He makes a good point, it’s an arrogant term that doesn’t hold a lot of stock because most of us don’t truly worship throughout the week, or at all until we are on stage putting on a show for the people. Also, can anyone truly lead someone else to the feet of God? Or does the music we play and the lyrics we sing stir something in people hearts that makes them go to the throne? Ultimately it isn’t about us at all, it’s about God working through us, using the talents he gave us to minister to the people around us.

So i’m not sure where I fall on the term. I mean, I fall so short when it comes to worshiping God whole heartedly every day, but I love singing praises to God and encouraging others to do the same.
It’s my passion.
It’s my joy.

But where should we draw the lines of titles and terms?
Should we even care?
Lee Mcderment (@mcdzl Mcdzl Twitter) said “Who cares if you are called a worship leader? God knows your heart and he knows if you are genuine or not.”

So ultimately I think we should call ourselves “Singing servants of God”

For the rest of the week my posts will be about worship leading examples in the Bible and how it applies to us.
Stay tuned.

But how do you feel about the term?

Do you think it’s silly to debate?

-Siege

Book Burning In North Carolina and How it Comes so Close to Our Hearts

No I don’t want to give this church any media attention because I believe what they are doing is wrong, but I felt the need to talk about it for a couple of reasons.

1. They are burning Bibles, and that is just crazy.

2. It taught me a lesson.

This church is burning an Bible that is not KJV because they believe God gave us English speaking people the KJV and that is the only translation for us. Not only are they burning Bibles but they are burning any book written by someone they consider to be a heratic, such as Billy Graham, Donald Miller, Erwin McManus, and so many more. (Poor Rob Bell didn’t stand a chance at this book burning, his books get burned at regular book burnings!) On top of all this, they are burning any music from satan, including contemporary christian music. (R.I.P. Fee and Relient K, we had a good run, but now I have to give you up for a burning.)

They are located in a small area of North Carolina and their church runs about 15 people, but the pastor hopes that this really gets the community behind the church.

Now I want you to stop for a moment and think about all this…

Now that you are done judging the church for being sinners and ignorant, let us talk about our own lives.

Now I know that we don’t actually burn anything, but don’t we do the exact same thing this church does?

Whoa whoa CJ, slow down, I have never participated in any such thing as this. I love all that stuff.

Yes you do, but what about hymns? What about the KJV? What about the outdated practices of churches like I have talked about above? Don’t we burn these things in our hearts and talk about how useless and out of date and worthless they are?

Don’t we complain and gripe when there is a hymn sung?

Don’t we cringe everytime we talk about the KJV?

Don’t we gripe about church services when they aren’t contemporary or emergent?

We do all of these things, with whatever it may be. We are no better than that church in North Carolina. We judge things that are not up to our “standards” of Christianity and we burn them in a big pile in our hearts.

Isn’t it time that we came together as a body of Christ and started loving people as Christ did? Granted, you may not like Hymns or the KJV version, you may not enjoy books by a certain author, but a brother or sister in Christ just might enjoy it.

So let us put down on stern hand of judgement against Church practices that we don’t  find suitable.

And let us come together in Christ to worship him.

PS: I am the world’s worst at this, so do not think I am pointing a finger at you.

What you burning in your hearts?

What judgements have you been giving that you need to lay down to Christ?