Trey McLaughlin "Let Praises Rise" (Cover)

Yo, this video is so dope. They sound amazing! Trey - you just got a new subbie.

Enjoy!

I Love This Place Tasha Cobbs

I purchased this album when it first came out and even though I thought it was nice, I wasn't exactly feeling it. Now, this song has been on repeat in my spirit. "Thank you for accepting me...." What a simple yet profound statement!
Enjoy!

3 pointers for those not on the praise team

I'm totally convinced that our district congregation is wack. Yep, I said it.

Recently we had a great P&W set. (Yes I'm tooting my horn - beep, beep!) Definitely the best of our last three, but somehow there was still some wackness going on within the congregation.

I'm not gonna even waste my brain cells trying to figure out why the audience was half dead, but here are some pointers for all of you who are not on a praise team.

• The best way to kill a service is by not participating. You don't have to be able to sing to make a joyful noise. You can lift your hands, wave your hands, sway, dance, clap, smile, etc. These are all ways to participate. There's nothing worse than looking at an audience of blank or angry faces.
• When you're excited about something, you don't sit all the way in the back. You don't have to be on the front row, but sitting on the periphery is a sign of where you are mentally and dare I say spiritually.
• Get over yourself and your issues. You are not responding to the praise team, per se. Praise and worship is your time to connect with God. Quit looking at the praise leaders as performers or as people in general who you may or may not even like. It's not about the praise team. It is about your response to God. We are mere conduits/facilitators.

There was a really popular secular song out a few years ago that had this really catchy line: "if you ain't got no money take your broke $%% home!"  Basically, don't try to kick it if you can't afford it. You'll kill everyone's good time trying to hang out when you're worried about keeping it cheap. That's kinda how I feel about P&W these days. If you didn't come to church to praise God maybe you should just stay home. (And please don't start thinking "well, sometimes people just need to hear a word or get prayer.") We need to quit coming to church to get something. This is not a welfare line.

So yeah...it's not always the praise team or the soloist or the preacher; it's you.

Mic check 1-2, 1-2

Sunday's praise and worship set was brought to you by epic fail.

For the second Sunday in a row my mics were crappy. And not just mediocre crappy, like might as well not have mics crappy.

The first crappy mic Sunday was because we had a rehearsal earlier in the week with a different set of people and did not readjust the settings. This Sunday's crappy mic was because the DJ and my dad decided to start twisting knobs all willey-nilley during the actual praise set without waiting to hear what it sounded like. Had they waited, they would've known that I had already adjusted them to my liking before church started. Or had they been in the sanctuary prior to church starting they would've seen me do the mic check. ijs

If you really want to ensure your P&W set starts off on the right foot, you gotta make sure you're doing everything within your power to have everything in place: team members there on time, mics checked, songs selected/rehearsed. The less you leave to chance, the better.

If I come back next week saying this happened 3 Sundays in a row, it's gone be some problems.

Stay tuned.

Balancing act

It's been a minute since I've posted anything, but one of the things I'm learning as I'm getting older is that balance is extremely important. I've had 2 life-changing events happen in the last 2 months and its caused me to adjust my focus some.While I have many draft posts in queue that I could have put on auto pilot, I decided not to even touch this blog and I'm sure it was the right move for me. I prefer that my posts are relevant and personal and that means posting what's close to my heart at any given moment.

In writing about balance, I was trying to be deep and find a scripture to support my forthcoming points, but nothing came to me or jumped out quickly. Here's is what I will say though... What I have learned about God is that he loves order. He wants us to live an abundant life, but often times we tend to think of abundance as having lots of stuff. However, when we acquire lots of stuff it can often become overwhelming and chaotic. You end up juggling things and we are not great multitaskers contrary to popular belief. As a full time-working, mother, wife, and praise team leader, I have plenty to juggle.

This month, I will try to post each week and get back in the groove of things.

Onward and upward!