NLC's sunrise service on the beach

NLC is my "other" church

This Saturday is New Life Covenant's Sunrise Service on the lovely shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago. (6300 S. Lake Shore Drive) I went last year and it was great.

Get there by or before 4:00 a.m. if you want to find parking. NLC doesn't mess around. These are some church-going folks!

Check out the church's calendar for more info.

Pop-up worship

Reposted from Travis Greene's FB page :)

I love the concept of pop-up worship! If you're in Charlotte, check out Casey J and Travis Greene at this free event Monday at 6 pm.

Smokie Norful - No One Else

Here's a great upbeat praise song to add to your set. Leggo Chicago!

Worship at MLB game (White Sox vs Mariners)

I'm so happy to plug that the Chicago White Sox are having a special event called Faith Day where a few club members will share their faith with attendees. And remember my previous post from Vertical Church Band? Well, they're performing at Sunday's event as well.

For more info including tickets to the game, check out:
http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/cws/ticketing/groups/gsg/gsg.jsp?loc=faith

Leggo Sox!

Rhythm is gonna get you

The funniest thing happened the other night while I was out on a triple date. We were at a Jamaican themed restaurant when the house band started to play a little music. My husband, not a church-goer, commented that Reggae music reminds him of church music. I didn't quite get that until the band went from playing a secular tune to playing How Great is Our God and then How Great Thou Art. "See!" said my husband.

Guess that goes to show that you might hear a praise in an unlikely place. I should've told my hubby you can run, but you can't hide.

Blessings

The dynamics delimma

If you want to have a successful team, there is one thing that cannot be ignored: team dynamics. Bad team dynamics are one of the life-suckers of church auxiliaries.  I think this is one of the main reasons people choose not to participate or join a team. They feel like they can't or won't fit in.

Team dynamics are a critical element in building/running a praise team. It's not enough that people have some musical acuity. You need people who work well together. One of the key pieces that is often overlooked is the willingness of team members to follow the direction of the leader. This is not to say that you can't have an opposing opinion. In the end, however, the leader was appointed for a reason and all others need to fall in line with the leader, as they follow Christ and the pastor.

People who are demanding, abrasive, lack humbleness, are chronically tardy, aren't 100% committed, don't follow instructions, and/or are always telling others what to do, make it difficult for a group to function well. These behaviors are detrimental and often cause dysfunction and grumbling within the team. I think as a culture, we glorify drama like this, but it has no place in the house of God and certainly not on my praise team.

I can hear you now "That's just how Sis. So and So is." My response to that is she can be like that, just not on my praise team. If that means we have a praise team with one less person, so be it. I prefer peace and order to having more members.

As leaders, when roles are not clearly defined and expectations are not communicated, the overall work suffers. The team leader sets the expectations of what behaviors are tolerable or not. If we choose to ignore certain behaviors, we have by default allowed that behavior to become acceptable. Being a leader sometimes means having to have difficult conversations to make the team better.

Let's not ruin our teams, by having members that don't work well with others. I think it's better to have a team where everyone is respectful toward one another and work together in love, than it is to have a team full of people who can saaaang, but are high maintenance. Please believe, ain't nobody got time for that!

Blessings

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord o my soul ) - Matt Redman (with Lyrics)

Sharing a great song I heard on the radio recently. Enjoy!