Today we had a goodbye lunch for a member of our Worship and Arts team, sort of.
Liz Fields is moving to women’s ministry and today was her last “official” day on our team. The story is amazing and if you know Liz or Shirley K. (who’s switching jobs with Liz), you should ask them to tell you about it. The thing I’m excited about is that now that Liz is no longer on our Worship and Arts staff team, I can brag about how big of a role she plays as a volunteer in our band!
Liz is one of the founding members of the church and she has been rockin’ the keys in church her entire life. She’s known around here as “Mama Liz,” because, well, she just takes care of everybody.
You’d be hard pressed to find a better piano player or a better person, and while I’m dissapointed that Liz won’t be on our staff team any longer, I’m glad that she’s going to continue to rock the house on a regular basis on keys.
She’s playing this weekend, so if you’re here, go up to her, tell her thanks for all she does and wish her good luck in her new gig. Without me on her team she’ll probably get a lot more done!
Today, we had Dana back on kit and he was awesome as always. He’s been out with a wrist injury for the last few months and so having him back in the house was a lot of fun.
One of our other main drummers, Rob Palmer hurt his shoulder a couple of months ago in a motorcycle accident and so he’s been out for a while as well.
Down to just one drummer, Robert Clark has been the man, filling in nearly every weekend. No matter how much I’ve asked him to play, he’s always excited, having fun and sounding fantastic. With two drummers out for a while I’ve joked that we’ve been hiding Robert in an underground bunker for protection! Now that Rob and Dana are back in the mix, not only will Robert be able to take some breaks between playing, but he’ll also be able to take off the buble wrap he’s been protected by!
Thanks, Robert, for all you do and for taking on extra duty!
If you see him around, let him know that he’s appreciated!
A lot of people have an experience with Church music that’s different than what we do. In many churches people can just show up and play; not here. Being a part of the worship and arts ministry at Clovis Hills is a huge time commitment that includes rehearsals, three weekend services and prep time on your own, not to mention, the dreaded audition.
I’ve tried various ways to explain to people why we do auditions, but I think the best reasoning is found in this short video.
Enjoy.
Thanks to all of the singers and musicians in our ministry that faithfully serve and that passed the audition!
One of the amazing parts of my gig is getting to work with an amazing team of volunteers. In every area of our ministry, we have people who are remarkably gifted, and since just saying that doesn’t really communicate all that they do and how much they mean to me, I thought I’d start letting you meet some of them. Each week I’ll be pimping a new volunteer and letting you in on all that they do to make my life a whole lot easier. With that said, here we go!
This is Shirley K.
Shirley is our vocal coordinator and sings in our choir and on our worship team. It is impossible not to like Shirley K. which is good, because it saves me from saying stupid things to people, because she says it and people love her for it.
Shirley is such a big part of our team and I could not do what I do without her help. She loves singing and is great at it and more than that, she loves Jesus and that’s evident right away.
Taking this picture was a bit of a process (thanks to Joni Gibson for hair and make-up; I wish I had my video camera during this one), but if you see Shirley around make sure to say thanks for all she does.
So I was talking with Liz yesterday and I realized something about our volunteers that I wanted to share with the world (or at least the 4 of you that read this). There are a lot of bands out there who play various styles of music and a lot of musicians who would say I am this type of drummer or this type of guitar player.
Serving in a church, though, is different. Our whole team of volunteers is not involved in the planning aspect of our services where we decide what songs we’ll play when. For the most part, they are scheduled and they come prepared and do an amazing job.
I realized though, that because many of them have opportunities to play in outside groups or in settings where they can play styles that they know and love, to play here where it’s different every week you have to really love service.
For instance, this week we leave for Africa and Frank, Allen, Karen and Dana, who are all on that team are serving. We have Thursday rehearsal, Saturday night service, two Sunday morning services and then we leave at 4:00. They’re not playing and singing because we’re doing a KISS“>KISS” />tribute weekend (though that gives me an idea…). They’re playing and singing because they love serving. In Africa, we’ll be playing a lot where we can’t do Christian songs so these peeps are learning how to play the ABC’s on the Cajon,”>Cajon,” />and acoustic guitar.
And this group is unique to our church. Our whole team is like that. We’re blessed with a lot of talented people, but more than that, with a lot of servants. Makes my job easier.
So if you see these guys and girls that you think are rock stars, take some time to tell them thanks for all they do. They work hard for no money to use their gifts and talent to bless people and honor God.
This was perhaps the most difficult week of my young, music directing career. We just finished our 6 week long, church-wide small group series (that’s a mouthful) on the Miracles of Jesus. Across our entire church, people got connected with new groups, met in people’s houses and studies the amazing things Jesus did in his ministry.
This weekend celebrated that in style with a ton of music, drama and taking the Lord’s Supper together. We did gospel music with our choir, rocking modern worship, piano lead, meditative music for taking the Lord’s Supper and did a drama song package using a song from the broadway show, “Wicked.” All of it done by volunteers. I tell you, there is no other place I would rather be than Clovis Hills. Even though we worked our volunteers more this week than we probably should have (sorry everyone) they came through like nobody’s business and did an amazing job!
4 very different styles of music using multiple singers and musicians and it was amazing. This week, though, in the midst of all of the stress I think I forgot why I do what I do. The business of it all just got really overwhelming and I was frustrated. Thankfully, Frank (one of our amazing volunteers) and I got to do something special this Saturday that helped me remember what any sort of gifting I have is for. We got to lead worship for a small group of people at Valley Children’s Hospital. A woman I don’t know has a daughter I don’t know who is 9 years old and fighting Leukemia. Most of the people there were from another church, but it was an amazing time of getting together, singing songs to God and asking for this little girls life. I was told by a few people how meaningful it was but honestly, I think God helped me more than anyone else. More than big production numbers, various styles of music or great sound equipment, my job is about praising Jesus and blessing people.
