Progression... and Transition

Progression

"They go from strength to strength." - Psalm 84:7

In Psalm 84, the psalmist talks about how our pursuit of God results in peace, strength, and more of his presence. When we are truly seeking him, he is faithful to meet with us.

The idea in verse 7 of going from strength to strength is something that I have seen in our worship team as the year has gone by.  Even when we are strong, God wants to make us stronger. We all began this youth group year in different spiritual places, but I have definitely seen growth as you have chosen to respect leadership, seek God, and listen to the Holy Spirit! By trusting in God and allowing him to lead us as a team, we have been able to come into his presence and lead others there, too. It's been very encouraging to see this and I hope you are aware of it in your own lives.

You all have talents and abilities (not just musically!) that God wants to continue to shape and strengthen, and I believe that if you continue in whole-hearted pursuit of him, that he will be faithful to you in all areas of life. None of us are perfect but God loves to do perfecting works for the glory of his name! So I challenge you to press in to him, asking him to work in your heart and raise you up to serve him more. 

Transition

As I am leaving in January for Cambodia, I'm transferring leadership to Jeremy, who will be accountable to Jocelyn. Jocelyn, Jeremy, and I know that God wants to continue to work in our worship team, to encourage the youth and enter his presence together. With Jeremy as the new worship leader, I hope that you will continue to give your best and seek to glorify God with your abilities. 

We will be having a meeting of our worship team in January, where we will have a time of prayer and talk about the transition into the new year and new leadership. I'll send out a message on Facebook once I confirm the date and time. Until then, have a great Christmas and New Year!

God bless,

Emily

Forward Motion

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've put anything new up here, but I have something that I want to quickly share with you...«

Have you ever tried to walk with your eyes closed? You might think you're walking in a straight line, but when you open your eyes, you see that you were wobbling around, getting off track, maybe even falling down in the process. It's fighting a losing battle, because we're meant to look ahead and see where we are supposed to be going.

God wants us as worship leaders to seek him and look ahead to where he wants us to go. Each time we lead others in worship, we have two options: try to lead people in our own direction or point them towards God. If we are not spiritually aware ourselves, how can we help others to go where He is going?

As you lead worship, I want to encourage you to visualize each time as the act of walking, not standing still singing or playing. We are literally supposed to be moving forward into God's presence, progressing in our intimacy with Him, and bringing ever more glory to Him.

But how can we make sure that we're really moving towards God? We need our spiritual eyes open (Ginny and Eric just talked about this!) The way to avoid spiritual blindness is simple, but it requires humility and discipline. We need to spend time daily with God, asking him to point out any hidden sins, wrong attitudes, or inconsistencies in our heart.

If we don't look at his Word, we won't see our own hearts clearly because we won't have anything to compare ourselves to. God's truth needs to be the standard that we measure ourselves by, so that we aren't walking around spiritually blind and puffed up with pride in our own abilities.

As we consistently come to God and seek him, we become more sensitive to what his Spirit is saying and where he is going. God WANTS us to know what he's doing! Intimacy with him allows us to see more of the big picture and respond to God as he moves. So keep asking him for more of this understanding!

Remember: Worship needs to be forward motion.

Is Our Worship Acceptable to God?

Please read the following piece by Bob Hoekstra (don't worry :P, it's short and you can handle it):


http://www.blueletterbible.org/devotionals/dbdbg/view.cfm?Date=10/22

REMINDER: If you are leading worship this week (Wayne, Mike, Curtis, Jansen, Jeremy), be at church with your instrument tuned and ready to play BY 6:30 pm.

Thanks!
Emily

A Few Things... (and a reminder)

Hey everyone! Thanks to all of you who came to the cottage last week, I think it's good for us to share things like that together and pursue the knowledge of God wholeheartedly!

I want to encourage you to continue in your own personal quiet times to study more about who God says he is and how he wants us to approach him in worship. If we don't spend time with him on our own, then when we come together and worship it's more like "catch-up" time then moving forward. We want to progress in our faith, know Christ intimately, and worship him passionately. So press into God and seek him out!

A quick reminder: this Friday (10/19) is homecoming, no regular youth group meeting. And unfortunately, because there is a women's retreat the next week, I'm going to have to rethink the worship setup for that meeting. I'll let you know if any changes to the original plan are necessary. I'm sorry for any confusion; email me if you have questions.

Guys one thing I want to mention... countenance. What is your countenance? It's the expression on your face, the way you present yourself. In Psalms it mentions people with a light in their countenance, and that light is from God. As people of God, with his Spirit living inside us, we need to lift up our countenance!

A lot of the times I see people worshipping God with bored looking faces (not just in youth group, but that's what I'm talking about right now). They may be very sincere, but their face doesn't show it. If I didn't know them and I walked into youth group for the first time, it might almost look to me like they were bored out of their minds and only singing because they had to.

Now, all of you made the choice to be on the worship team, nobody twisted your arm to join. So I know you want to be there and want to lead other people into the presence of God. And God is never boring! So let's make an effort to lift up our countenance, and allow the worship in our hearts to have an outward expression.

If you can move your fingers to play or open your mouth to sing, then I know you are all capable of looking like you mean what you are playing and singing. I'm not saying you have to be fake and start making random faces in the middle of songs. I'm just saying, we love God, we want more of him, let's not be all stiff and bored about it! Pray and ask God what that means for you.

See you guys soon!
~Emily

Welcome to the GCC Youth Worship Blog!

Hi everyone, if you're reading this then I'm assuming that you were at our Friday night meeting and want to be a part of the youth worship team.

For worship this year, a big emphasis is going to be on the nature of God, our relationship with him, and how we can worship him as his children, his Church, and his Bride. You've probably heard a lot about all three of those identities, but I just want to say something about being the Bride of Christ:

Being the Bride of Christ means anticipating a special relationship with him, seeking to be close to him, desiring him like no one else, and pursuing him because we are pledged to him. Marriage is big deal, it means saying that you choose to unite yourself in love to one person FOREVER. We are not just people God loves, we are the ones he PICKED.

God has chosen to pursue each one of us like a someone trying to capture the heart of a person they're madly in love with. That might sound sappy or strange, but don't dismiss the idea. God wants to give you understanding of this so that you can deepen your relationship with him. And if you're a guy, remember that God isn't literally calling you to be "the girl" in the relationship (:P), he's saying "I seek you out, I want you to love me with the same passion that I have for you".

At the meeting, we talked about some practical things and then we gave you an assignment: do a little studying about some of the names of God and be ready to discuss what you learned at next week's meeting.

Why is this something that you are required to do? Because if you want to lead other people into worship and praise to God, it is extremely important to know who this God we are singing to IS. How can we be sincerely worshiping if we don't know the nature of who we worship?

Here are some links that might help you as you learn more about the nature of God:
http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/misc/name_god.html
http://ldolphin.org/Names.html
http://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/attributes.html

See you next week!

~Emily

"It is You" -New Song to Learn

This is the first song that I'd like everyone to learn. It's pretty simple, you've probably heard it before. It's technically not a "new" song but I don't think many of you are familiar with playing it.

Look at the words, even if you're not a singer. We want to be aware of what we are really saying when we are in worship. Worship is supposed to be interactive! This song invites Christ to meet with us, acknowledging that he alone is worthy of our adoration and worship. This song is partially taken from Psalm 19 (go read it!).

Here are the words/chords:
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/n/newsboys/it_is_you_crd.htm

Here is an audio clip:
http://www.jango.com/stations/24575956/tunein?proxy_id=29488100&song_id=128881

And here's a video of it so you can get an idea of how the song can be played*:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IkiQ-QZEE

Musicians, please familiarize yourself with how to play this song, give it your best shot! Singers, try to learn the melody or work out your harmony for this so we can all try it out soon.

Thanks!






*Remember, we don't really want to literally imitate these people, it's just a random video so you can visualize our own way of playing it... we need to find out what works for us as musicians and what makes sense for an atmosphere of worship. But I do kind of like their arrangement of the song. ;)