"A lack of joy in worship is pride and unbelief in your life." Laura Hackett

Dear Blog Audience,

As a leader of a worship team semester, I am I learning all sorts of things that I never realized a worship leader had to deal with. Some things have been easy and learned so quickly they were hardly an issue (like using the talk back and playing at the same time, staying on the click, and falling in love with my team.). Other things have been harder to learn. There have been days when I've been tired and struggling to come up with choruses or staying on tune or remembering to direct the other musicians on the team and get the best feel for the song. There have been days when I've been ready to lead, so excited to play and sing for Jesus and take my team with me as we sing the word or intercede. It's been such a positive experience for me and I am thankful for my school giving me a safe environment to learn worship leading skills in. Even if I do mess up, I'm not freaking out because there is a room full of people or because I'm leading a church service. It's just a bunch of students and a coach that is there to help us learn from our "train wrecks" as we call them. Not everyone gets this type of safety as they lead a team of people musically and spiritually.
The biggest place of warfare that I've had since I started leading worship, however, hasn't been with my team mates or with the music. It has been with my mind. My thoughts. My heart. My emotions. I've been struggling to keep my thoughts humble and encouraging. I have always been quick to judge things and I have prayed long and hard that I would be quick to love like Jesus, not take what my eyes see and turn that into my perception of that person or situation. I haven't always been satisfied with my leadership abilities, or my voice or my piano playing. I compare myself mercilessly and sometimes it's out of a prideful, "I can do this better" spirit and sometimes its out of a, "I might as well quit, I'm the worst person on the team" spirit. Back and forth, up and down, in and out my thoughts have gone literally EVERYWHERE since this semester started. I'd think something and then instantly reprimand myself for thinking it. It was about clothes and music and voice and choruses and situations and home life and a bajillion more things. As you can probably tell by now, it was a huge battle for me.
On Tuesdays, we have chapel for the music school. One of my favorite worship leaders, Laura Hackett, spoke to us and most of what she talked about was her own struggle as she became a worship leader and she hit on the thought life of a prophetic musician/singer.

"When you have those thoughts, you just have to repent and keep going because your attitude and unrepentant heart could keep your entire team from going someplace with God." 

That was the gist of what hit me. I could relate with almost everything she said and her words of wisdom to just repent and move on was exactly what I needed to hear. The next day I was leading so I started debrief off with an apology as their worship leader of letting thoughts of jealousy and pride and disunity hold me back and affect our team. They all nodded and said, "Yeah, us too!" and that set was the best set I've ever led. I felt the Spirit so strong and it was a joy to lead my team to partner with God. I think what we were really feeling was freedom and joy. It was awesome.
I know I have a long way to go as a worship leader but I am thankful for all the lessons I am learning along the way. I'm not going to ever have a perfect set or a perfect team but I will have sets and teams that are someone and help me grow in love. And that is exactly what I want!

Love,
Me

A day in the life of an IHOPU student [Class Cheers]

Dear blogging audience,

Last night I read the blog of a lady who had hundreds of followers and was amazed at how many updates she just did about life. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that this blog will become a huge network of people with 300+ comments on each post but I figured giving you guys a peek into one of my busy days wouldn't hurt.

Thursday:
This morning I woke up happy. Not that this fact is all that uncommon but on a morning like this one, it could be classified as a miracle. In fact, last night when I wrote in my journal and grumped before going to bed,  I was anticipating having a crabby morning. I was ready to feel exhausted, unprepared for the day, discumbobulated [like here] and introverted but I really didn't. I woke up, I found clothes that matched, I grabbed the right books and got myself to where I needed to be at the right time. And I felt joyful. It was wonderful!
And today in class, we had a quiz which I "studied" for. (Defnition: read through the notes with a highlighter and high lighted the things that sounded cool.) and I only missed half a point. Not gonna lie, getting a good grade really boosts my happy level for the day. The rest of class wasn't a normal class. Instead of sitting and listening to our teacher talk, we were assigned study groups and a topic to discuss.  After discussing our topic for about half an hour, we all got back together and one or two people from each group went up and shared with the class what we found in our groups. The topic of my group was the Mercy of God. What a wonderful and deep subject. Mercy is communicable (an attribute of God that we can portray in our personal lives) but the more we talked about it the more transcendent it became. Mercy is an eternal attribute of God but how did He show mercy before creation? How will He show it after we've been redeemed? Those questions sparked something in my heart. I love that I will have all of eternity to study the mercy of God.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

    For His mercy endures forever.

Psalm 136:1

This afternoon was IHOPU chapel. Everyone goes. Freshmen through seniors, night watch and day watch, ministry students, music students, media students. Personally, I would put chapel in my top 5 favorite things about IHOPU. We all come together. We all love each other. I get to hug all the people I don't normally see and we hear from someone in leadership over IHOPU with a provoking and heart stirring message. But, the highlight (for everyone, no joke) are the class cheers. One of the top IHOPU faculty members always goes onto stage after worship and talks for a few minutes but before she leaves and lets the speaker come up, she asks, "Okay, you ready for the class cheers?" The order she picks us to do them is random, sometimes picking the freshmen first, sometimes the seniors, sometimes the cheer that she personally likes the best... Whichever way she does it, we all get excited. Now, the sophomores had the best class cheer the beginning of the last semester. [Yes, I am a sophomore.] The Juniors had created a call and response cheer and it was pretty good, but we took their idea and made a longer one. Last semester, the Freshmen tried to come up with a cheer that was good enough for our faculty member but she's picky and week after week would say, "Come on, Freshmen! Find something better!" (all out of love.) Sophomores got booted out of #1 spot earlier last semester by the interns that joined us during chapel. It was a sad day when they were given a standing ovation and the "Kings and Priests" were simply old news. Today we didn't have the interns and we had the director over all of IHOP-KC there as a guest speaker. Last week we didn't do cheers because the spirit fell the cheer lady was crying and getting ministry (don't worry, it was worth it.) so we were all stoked to do our cheers for the first time for the Spring semester today. Classes had literally been practicing and thinking about it all week because we were so excited. Announcements were finished and the speaker was about to start and a cry went up from the hundreds of students in the auditorium, "Class cheers! Class cheers!" The response was, "We don't want to take time from the speaker." "Oh, no. Go ahead." Our speaker smiled. "I want to see this."
The student body erupted into shouts of thanksgiving and we all sat in anticipation as our cheer director came onto stage and grabbed a mic. The order was decided and Freshmen were going to start. Now, the sophomores had walked into a Freshmen class cheer practice so I knew they had a boss class cheer. And, yes, I was jealous. I mean, so far we were still #1 in the IHOPU class cheer world because the internship wasn't technically part of school. Of course when the Freshmen do their little song and dance to start us off, the room explodes, they get a standing ovation and the cheer lady is ecstatic. FINALLY! They had come up with something that was worthy of being an IHOPU class cheer. I think every face was literally glowing, the freshmen were so happy. Then it was our turn. We did our cheer perfectly and sounded fierce but, honestly, after such an epic start, we didn't stand a chance. The upper class men got the, "Is that it?!" response so we ended big with the Freshmen again.

I remember when the Sophomores were asked to do their cheer twice. I remember when the sophomores were given a standing ovation. I remember when we were praised from the stage for having such an awesome class cheer. And as I sat through the speaker, I realized that that day was over. I knew that the "Kings and Priest" glory days were over. Sure, our cheer is awesome, but with all these new kids coming in, I know that the class cheers will simply get bigger and better until they get to be full length musicals. We'll look back and think about the current senior class and how their cheer is simply flapping their arms like "Angels in the Outfield." Last years graduating class sign was just the peace sign. And as I pondered this whole ritual called "Class Cheer" I realized that I was okay with not being known as the class with the best class cheer anymore. I'd rather be known as the class with the best attitude. I'd rather be known as the class that was the hungriest for the things of God. I'd rather be known as the class that went low to serve our classmates and faculty. Did I like having the best class cheer? Oh, absolutely! But thank God that going to IHOPU is so much more than just having the best cheer to wow everyone else at chapel once a week. It's about that reach in our hearts. I pick the deep things of God over a standing ovation.

Love,
Me